


Death, Love and Time

by Marcus_S_Lazarus



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M, Inspired by "Star Trek: Imzadi", Time Travel, Written back in 2007 on FF.Net
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:01:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 54,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24649135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marcus_S_Lazarus/pseuds/Marcus_S_Lazarus
Summary: A decade after a tragic loss, the discovery of an Ori conspiracy drives Daniel to risk everything in a desperate attempt to save the world and the woman he loves.
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter/Daniel Jackson
Kudos: 12





	1. The Death of Samantha Carter

**Author's Note:**

> This begins about a month or so after the events of 'Talion', and ignores anything else that might take place afterwards

As he sat in his office, casually studying the last pieces of paperwork for Earth's own proposals regarding the treaty between the Milky Way galaxy and the former Ori forces, Daniel couldn't stop himself from smiling slightly at the prospect of what awaited them.

It was over.

Almost a year after they'd originally made contact with the Ori (Albeit by accident), they'd finally ended the Ori threat once and for all. It hadn't been a perfect victory, true- they, and their allies, had lost several ships and hundreds of thousands of men in the holy war for the Milky Way- but they'd pulled it off.

As they'd eventually discovered during a confrontation with an Ori Prior on a distant planet, a couple of months after Daniel had reverted back to normal after his own transformation into a Prior, the Sangraal that he and Merlin had sent through the Supergate had succeeded in doing its work. As soon as it had reached the other side of the Supergate, the Sangraal had activated, eliminating the Ori back in their home galaxy… and, according to all information they'd managed to acquire, killing Adria in the process, the energy requirements of the Sangraal draining the Ori battlecruiser so seriously that life support was shut down.

With the Ori gone, the Priors and the battlecruisers still remaining in the Milky Way had only had access to a certain amount of power before they ran out of it. As it turned out, the Ori gave the Priors their advanced powers by forming a simplistic 'link' with them, allowing the Priors to channel basic variations of the Ori's powers without them having to deal with any repercussions from the Ancients; with the Ori 'dead', the Priors and the battlecruisers were eventually left drifting in space or trapped on nearby planets.

With no other way of survival available to them- even the most devoted followers of Origin began to question it when it became clear that even the _Priors_ weren't going to be 'saved' by the Ori-, the Ori's former armies had eventually agreed to surrender to the combined forces of Earth, the Asgard, and the Jaffa. After much debate among the heads of the various races- Generals Landry, Hammond and Jack O'Neill representing Earth, Bra'tac, Rak'nor and Teal'c representing the Jaffa and Thor, Heimdall and Ksavir for the Asgard-, it had been decided to allow the former Ori followers to settle on various planets, although the exact conditions of their settlement would have to wait until the time came for an official peace conference.

The time and location having been settled upon to everybody's satisfaction- they'd eventually chosen to hold the meeting at Earth's Gamma Site, due to begin in a couple of hours from now- and currently, Daniel was just going over Earth's own proposals for the treaty with the former Ori army before he set off for the conference himself. As one of Earth's resident 'experts' on the Ori- Vala, as the 'mother' of the Orici, was naturally the other- his presence at the conference, had apparently been specifically requested by Thor himself, and Daniel wasn't going to let one of SG-1's oldest alien allies down without good reason…

"Daniel?" a voice said from outside his office, breaking into his train of thought.

"Oh, hi, Sam," Daniel said, blinking slightly in surprise as he looked up to see his old friend standing in his door, a casual smile on her face as she studied him at his desk.

"What?" he asked, indicating the small smile on her face, a similar grin on his own. "Something happen that I should know about?"

"Oh, nothing," Sam replied, smiling slightly wider at him as she walked into the office, indicating his desk currently covered in papers as he studied them. "It's just that this seems to be the first time I've seen you looking that intently at something that _wasn't_ written at least a thousand years ago; it's kind of an interesting change."

She shrugged slightly as she sat down opposite him, that same smile on her face as she looked at him. "Plus… well, it's nice to see you looking like that again, really; it seems like it's been a while since you had something to really occupy your time like that."

Glancing down at the papers before him, Daniel chuckled slightly as he realised that Sam had a valid point; normally, when he looked at something as intently as he'd been studying the treaty before him, it normally hadn't been written particularly recently.

"Well," he said, shrugging nonchalantly as he looked back at her, "After all I went through to put an end to the Ori crisis once and for all, I guess I feel an obligation to make sure that everything works out well for everybody now that the situation's over and done with."

Sam laughed slightly at that.

"Same old Daniel," she said, casually glancing down at his desk. "Always wanting to save everybody, aren't you?"

Daniel shrugged again at that, an equally casual smile on his face.

"You know me, Sam; always willing to help, and sometimes refusing to give up even if I'm _dead_ ," he said, as he pushed the paper he was currently studying off to one side and looked back at Sam. "By the way, has the President come to any decision regarding the publicity situation?"

"Oh, you mean that whole thing about whether or not to make the Stargate Program public?" Sam asked. With the Ori no longer a threat, the President was at last contemplating making the existence of the Stargate Program public to the rest of the world, given that there was no longer a specific danger out in the galaxy that would merit the secret being kept to prevent possible panic. So far, however, neither the President or the joint chiefs had managed to come to a fixed conclusion about the matter at hand; if nothing else, Sam's trip a couple of months back into a parallel universe where the program had been public since the battle with Anubis at the Antarctic outpost had put a completely new angle on the whole problem.

The smile fell slightly from Sam's face as she leaned forward, resting her head in her hand as she looked at him.

"Well… it's getting complicated," she sighed, a mixed look of frustration and apprehension on her face as she spoke. "I've been discussing it with General O'Neill, General Hammond, and the President for the last few days over the phone and via e-mail every chance I had, and… well it's getting complicated, to say the least."

"In what way?" Daniel asked, anxiously putting the treaty aside; if there was something going on regarding the decision of whether or not to make the existence of the Stargate Program public, Daniel was particularly interested to know.

"Well… with the Ori threat gone, the President's been thinking about ways of averting the problems that arose in that other world when the Stargate went public," Sam explained, as she looked back at Daniel once again. "In that other reality, the main issue was the fact that the American military was in sole control of the Stargate, thus giving us unique access to the military technology that we'd acquired by travelling to other worlds, the rest of the world was- rather understandably, of course- afraid of the technological advantage we had over them. The President was thinking that, if we maybe put a civilian in overall charge of the Stargate Program, with a military commander as second-in-command in case we run into any more trouble with the Lucian Alliance or something like that, we'd manage to avoid some of the worst of the international backlash that occurred in that world. If nothing else, we're not on a war footing here like we were over there, so having a civilian in charge could actually work."

Turning over what Sam had just told him in his mind, Daniel nodded thoughtfully.

"It makes… sense," he said, before he looked inquiringly over at Sam. "But who would they select to take that job? I mean, commanding the SGC isn't exactly something you can just pick a person off the street for; how would they even go about picking the new commander?"

Sam smiled slightly at him.

"Actually, that's part of the reason I came here to talk to you," she said. "You see, the President asked General Hammond, General O'Neill and myself for who we thought would be a good candidate for that position, and, well…"

Her smile grew even brighter as she looked at him. "We all nominated you."

Daniel's eyes widened in surprise. For a moment, he was unable to do much more than stare at her incredulously

"M- _me_?" he said at last, mentally cursing himself for being unable to do much more than continue to stare at her, but still totally shocked at the whole thing. "But… but…"

"Daniel," Sam said, smiling casually at her friend as she reached out to place a hand on his shoulder, "if you're about to protest that you don't deserve something like that, don't; you really _shouldn't_ think so little of yourself. You've been here longer than almost anybody, you opened the Stargate after two weeks when everybody else took two years to do nothing, you've helped us to form alliances with races that may have otherwise rejected us completely…"

Her smile became a little broader as she continued to look at him. "Quite frankly, I can't think of a better person to command the SGC if it has to get a new commander."

For a moment, as he stared at her as she sat on his desk, her words of praise still ringing in his ears, Daniel was once again tempted to throw protocol out of the window, forget all the rules and restrictions he'd imposed on himself ever since he'd returned from Ascension after the destruction of Abydos, and just grab Sam and kiss her, finally taking the chance to express what he'd been trying to deny for the last four years…

But he couldn't.

She was in love with his best friend, and, no matter how much it hurt, he had to respect that.

"Well… uh… thanks," he said at last, looking at Sam with a small smile on his face. "I… I really appreciate that."

"You're welcome," Sam replied, casually smiling at him once again before she glanced at the clock on his wall and sighed. "Sorry, but I have to go; we're working on that portable version of Merlin's device, and I think we're making some progress with it."

"Uh… yeah, sure thing," Daniel said, looking back at her, trying to avoid showing his still-present shock at what had just taken place. "I'll… uh, I'll join you for lunch in an hour, OK? I'd just like to take a last check over this…"

"Sure thing," Sam said, smiling back at him as she stood up. "I'll be in my office by then; you know where to find me."

As she walked out of the office, Daniel sighed slightly at himself as he turned his attention back to the treaty papers before him.

Like everything awkward in his life- his discoveries in the Stargate Program tainted by the knowledge that he couldn't share them with anyone, what he remembered of his time Ascended versus his inability to do anything with the power he'd possessed back then- when it came to his feelings for Sam, there were good days and bad days. On the good days, like today, when their friendship was comfortable and relaxed, and it was just the two of them talking about general details in their lives, Daniel could almost pretend that they were together, that his feelings were reciprocated, that she really _did_ love him as much as he loved her…

Then there were the bad days, when he remembered that she was in love with Jack, and he felt like somebody had cut out his heart with a rusty knife.

 _God, Daniel, will you just get_ over _it_? he scolded himself, as he picked up his pen and turned back to the treaty. _You knew from the beginning that the chances of her seeing you as more than a friend were remote; you should just be satisfied with what you've got and leave it at that_.

It was what he'd always told himself when the good days became so good that Daniel almost found himself believing that his wishes had come true.

Maybe one day, he'd actually convince himself to listen to it.

* * *

An hour later, having looked over the majority of the treaty to his satisfaction- he'd had to make a couple of minor recommendations, but overall the terms seemed to be fair on all concerned parties- Daniel was heading down the corridor towards Sam's office for their lunch meeting, feeling better than he had in a long while.

True, the Sam issue was still prominent in his thoughts- indeed, it was only ever during a crisis situation that he'd felt as though it _wasn't_ on his mind- but, that aside, he felt things were going pretty well. In a matter of hours or so the final treaty with the former Ori armies would be signed, the galaxy would be at peace at last, and, after that…  
  
Well, who knew? Maybe Daniel would finally have the chance to pay a proper visit to Atlantis…  
  
Reaching Sam's lab, Daniel reached out for the handle, opened the door…  
  
Then, at the sight before him, Daniel's blood ran cold from fear.  
  
Samantha Carter- his closest friend, the woman he'd worked alongside for the past ten years, the woman he'd felt more for than he'd ever felt for even Sha're (Not that he liked to think much about that even to himself)- was lying in her chair, hands desperately clutching her throat, gasping for air, her skin turning increasingly pale as she stared around herself, uncomprehending terror on her face as a faint trickle of blood leaked from a faint cut on her head.  
  
"SAM!" Daniel yelled in horror, tearing into the room and grabbing the phone from her desk.  
  
" _I need a medical team in Colonel Carter's office_!" he yelled at the phone, desperately staring at Sam as she shook desperately in her chair.  
  
As soon as he heard a vague confirmation on the other end of the line- he wasn't interested in paying attention to the specifics of _what_ was being said, only in knowing that the medical team would be coming as soon as possible- Daniel slammed the phone down and dashed towards Sam, grabbing her in his arms and holding her close to him.  
  
"Hold on, Sam…" he whispered, staring anxiously at her face as her eyes began to glaze over; Daniel was starting to become increasingly concerned that blindness would be one of the side-effects of whatever was happening to her. "It's OK… I've called a medical team… they'll figure out what's wrong with you… you'll be fine… you _have_ to be fine…"  
  
"D… Daniel?" Sam gasped weakly. For a moment, Daniel's heart swelled with hope, then his eyes fell on Sam's face once more and that hope died a little; her eyes were still blank and unseeing, only the faintest gasps to breath indicating that she wasn't gone already.  
  
"I'm here, Sam…" he said, reaching up to tenderly stroke her face, trying to hold back the tears he felt prickling his eyes as he stared at her.  
  
"Cold…" Sam gasped, reaching up to clutch desperately at his shoulder with one hand. "Hurts… can't see… _help_ me…"  
  
"I know…" Daniel replied, desperately trying to control his tears. This couldn't be happening to him… Sam _couldn't_ be dying, not after they'd _won_ , for God's sake! "Just hold on… you'll be fine… I've got a medical team coming… I've done what I can for the moment… you'll be _fine_ … just stay with me…"  
  
For a moment, Daniel turned away to glance anxiously at the door, praying that it would just burst open and reveal Doctor Lam standing there with her team, ready to cure Sam of whatever was wrong with her…  
  
But there was nobody there.  
  
"Daniel…" Sam gasped, her grip on his shoulder tightening as she stared blankly in his direction.  
  
"What?" Daniel replied, looking anxiously back at her; quite frankly, in this state, _anything_ that helped  
  
"You have to know…" Sam gasped, her voice becoming ever more strained with pain, but clearly unable to shake her resolution to keep talking. "Whatever you think… I love _you_ … never Jack… always _you_ …"  
  
Up until that point, Daniel hadn't thought he could be in more pain.  
  
Then Sam gasped out those three little words he'd been wanting to hear from her more than he'd ever wanted to hear anything else, and he felt like someone had replaced his blood with acid.  
  
_No_ … he thought to himself, staring in increasingly growing horror at the trembling form in his arms. _There's no way…_ no way _… that life can be_ that _unfair to me…_  
  
But he knew what he'd heard.  
  
His most impossible dream had been fulfilled at the same moment as his greatest nightmare had been realised.  
  
He knew now that Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter loved him… just as he knew that Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter was soon going to die.  
  
Before he could even try to respond, Sam let out one last, shuddering, painful gasp, and then slumped in his arms.  
  
Daniel's eyes, already damp from tears, became even wetter as he realised what had just taken place.  
  
She was dead.  
  
Samantha Carter, the woman he loved, who'd just fulfilled his most impossible desire by revealing that she loved him too… was dead.

* * *

When the medical team that he'd called upon his arrival finally reached the office, moments too late to even _try_ and do anything, they found Daniel Jackson, a man who'd endured everything from losing his wife to actually _dying_ without much more than a few tears, crouched in the chair behind the desk, Sam's dead body cradled in his arms, his head pressed into the crook between her neck and head, crying harder than the human body should have been capable of.

"I love you too…" he was whispering, tears streaming uncontrollably down his face as he held the body in his arms, apparently unaware or uncaring about the people who'd just arrived. "I love you too…"


	2. A Mournful Anniversary

_**Ten years later…**_  
  
Sitting in a half-full O'Malley's Bar, a man in his mid-fifties sat at a table for five, sipped at a glass of sparkling mineral water and stared listlessly ahead of himself. Despite the medical advances in laser eye surgery made over the last decade, the man still wore wire-frame glasses, which occasionally slipped down to the end of his nose as though he couldn't really bring himself to get ones that fitted better. His hair, a rapidly-greying shade of brown, flopped down around his face and neck, but it was hard to tell whether he kept it like that because he liked it or because he just couldn't be bothered to get it cut. He was dressed in dark blue jeans and a blue-and-cream checked shirt, and occasionally glanced at his watch as though he was waiting for something.  
  
Finally he heard something behind him, and smiled slightly as he turned around to glance over his shoulder.  
  
"Late again, huh?" he said, a small smile crossing his lips that failed to reach his eyes as he took in the people standing behind him. "You know, I don't know why I bother at times…"  
  
"Oh, come _on_ ; you've gone and _died_ on us in the past- or, failing that, you've gone missing under circumstances that mean our obvious assumption is that you've died, and you're not prepared to let it go when we're a _bit_ late for a friendly meeting?" one of the men standing there said, shaking his head pityingly as he sat down opposite the other man. "You know, a guy could get the wrong impression from that kind of attitude…"  
  
Rolling his eyes, the first man chuckled slightly as he indicated the seats beside him.  
  
"Come on, just sit down and order your drinks," he said, sipping from his water once more as the two men sat down around him, smiling slightly at each of them. "As fun as it might be, I didn't come here to trade insults; I just came here to have a drink with friends."  
  
Once again, he was grateful to see that nothing much had changed about them since their last little unofficial reunion. Oh, he saw them at intervening times throughout the year, of course- dinner at Jack's house one day, the occasional basketball game with Mitchell to keep himself in shape despite his age, stuff like that- but it was only on these occasions that he really got the chance to see his old friends in a group these days.  
  
"Same old Daniel Jackson, eh?" General Cameron Mitchell (Retired), commander of SG-1 and military advisor to the SGC until his retirement the previous year, said, casually indicating the small bottle in his friend's hand. "Start light, and then get lighter, eh?"  
  
"You could say that," Doctor Daniel Jackson, the man who had opened the Stargate, been a long-time member of SG-1, and commanded the Stargate Program since the historic Ori treaty of 2007, replied, smiling slightly at his old friend as he sipped at his drink. "After all, there's no telling when my next 'call to action' could come in; I need to be alert if I'm going to help out back at base, and I never much enjoyed getting drunk anyway."  
  
"Fair point," Mitchell said, nodding with a slight smile on his face- they both knew the SGC didn't _really_ depend on Daniel that much, and he wasn't arrogant enough to think they did- as he turned back to the table before him. Upon seeing the two new arrivals enter, the bar staff, long familiar with the three men in question, already knew what all of them would order, even if their visits nowadays were more intermittent than they had been in the past.  
  
"So, you couldn't get T. or Jonas to show up for this thing, huh?" General Jack O'Neill (Three times retired), former commander of SG-1, the SGC, and Homeworld Security before retiring to years ago, asked, casually sipping his beer as he looked inquiringly at Daniel. "I mean, it's been a while since I've seen them at least; wouldn't mind knowing how they're doing."  
  
Rolling his eyes once more, Daniel brushed a lock of his scraggy grey hair out of his eyes and glared briefly at Jack, the glare only slightly marred by the smile on his lips; as they'd been for the past ten years, Daniel's didn't give away much more than varying degrees of pain.  
  
"Jack, you know as well I do the kind of stuff Teal'c and Jonas have to deal with back on Langara and Dakara; asking them to take time off for a simple team reunion wouldn't really be practical," he said, staring critically at his old friend. "Particularly with the death of Bra'tac, Teal'c's been increasingly busy keeping everything under control back in the Jaffa High Council, and as for Jonas…"  
  
He sighed slightly as he studied his old friend. "Well, you remember how things were back when he contacted us during that whole thing with the out-of-control naqahdriah and the Goa'uld spy; just because _he's_ more willing to negotiate a peaceful settlement between the three governments doesn't mean the other two are."  
  
"Ah," Jack said, nodding simply in understanding. He may be in his seventies, but he'd still aged significantly better than Daniel had; his skin was less weathered, his hair was still short, and his eyes were as sharp as ever. Cameron Mitchell was in pretty much the same condition, the only distinct differences between his current appearance and when he'd been the commander of SG-1 was slightly longer, greying hair, and a faint scar on his face where he'd been struck by a Wraith during a brief visit to Atlantis eight years ago.  
  
If Daniel could have brought himself to care, he would almost have been jealous of how well they'd both aged in comparison to him; he sometimes looked like he was a whole decade older than he actually was, and, despite his exercise regime, it was apparent that he was nowhere near as fast as he'd been in the past.  
  
As it was, he only registered that they looked better in their 'old age' than he did and left it at that.  
  
 _After all_ , he often thought to himself, _why would I_ want _to look good? The only person I'd have_ wanted _to look good for is gone…_  
  
Even ten years after the events in question, that thought was still enough to leave him feeling like somebody had stabbed a dagger through his heart and replaced his blood with acid.  
  
He supposed what made it worse was the fact that he had no idea what had actually _caused_ those events in the first place.  
  
For a moment, the three men just sat at their table, casually sipping their drinks as they thought back to their old ally, Bra'tac, whose recent passing was still keenly felt by the entire Free Jaffa Nation. From the moment SG-1 had first met him on their initial return to Chulak, the old Jaffa master had been a dependable ally, helping them do everything from saving Earth from Apophis' invasion to fighting off the Ori assault on the Milky Way, to say nothing of playing a prominent role in the creation of the Free Jaffa Nation itself…  
  
And now, after all those years, at the ago of one hundred and fifty-four, Bra'tac had passed away in his sleep a few days ago, much to the regret of all who'd known him.  
  
Even though he had left an able successor to his position as head of the Free Jaffa Nation in the form of Teal'c, his death was still a tragic loss to all those who had fought alongside him in the SGC. His courage and wisdom against any crisis had, time and again, inspired both Jaffa and Tau'ri alike to keep trying; his dedication to the cause of freedom for all Jaffa had inspired so many to rebel against their false gods; his skills as a military leader had caused him to arrange many strikes against every foe the galaxy in general had faced in the two decades since the Stargate Program had first come into existence…  
  
All that was gone, but Bra'tac's memory would live on, in the hearts of minds of all who'd had the privilege of knowing him.  
  
Even knowing that the program was public now, the former members of SG-1 were amazed at how much attention the death of Bra'tac had received among even the people of Earth. There was actually some talk of erecting a memorial for him on _Earth_ , to say nothing of the one that would be constructed on Dakara, but, in the end, Jack and Teal'c had objected to it. Bra'tac had been a hero to the Jaffa first and the Tau'ri second, and it was thus only right that the Jaffa be the one to construct his sole memorial, as only they could fully appreciate its significance.  
  
Eventually, after sitting in silence as they remembered their old ally, before Mitchell placed his glass down and glanced curiously over at Daniel.  
  
"Talking of our offworld allies, any news from Atlantis?" he asked casually, smiling slightly at the former archaeologist; even now, over a decade after its discovery, Daniel had still only been to Atlantis on a few occasions, one of them being the visit to disable the Supergate. Despite this, he genuinely enjoyed remaining in contact with the expedition, and never missed an opportunity to meet with Doctor Weir and her staff when they came back to Earth (The only exception was Doctor McKay; during their first actual 'meeting', Daniel had punched him when McKay commented that Sam's ideas for developing the portable version of Merlin's device had been based on inaccurate information, and the two had never managed to speak civilly to each other since Daniel had walked out of McKay's office in a cold rage).  
  
"Oh, the usual stuff," Daniel said in an equally offhand manner as he sipped at his drink. "The handheld DHD we're testing over there seems to be working out- the amount of addresses you can store is limited, but at least they don't have to worry about dialling home under fire any more- and, the last I heard, the Atlantean scientists had actually managed to duplicate the city's drone weapons. The manufacturing process still takes time, but they're hoping to have replenished Atlantis's weapon supplies by the end of the year; just because they've made progress with the war against the Wraith doesn't mean the Pegagus Galaxy's _totally_ safe yet."  
  
"Oh, you mean we can reuse those drone things freely now?" Jack asked, grinning over at his friend. "Thank _God_ ; I was wondering if we'd _ever_ get anything done with them!"  
  
Despite his own interests in that field lying in the archaeological rather than weaponry aspects of the situation, Daniel had to agree with Jack. In many ways, the Ancient drone weapons were one of the most fascinating parts of their technology, and the whole prospect of duplicating them was an absolutely incredible concept.  
  
"So long as McKay doesn't keep talking about how _he's_ the one who cracked it- particularly when _I_ pointed out the problem he was having with it in the first place- I'm definitely satisfied with how things worked out," he said, casually shrugging as he took another mouthful of his drink- thinking of McKay still left him with a certain urge to hit something, given the man's overwhelming arrogance at times- before he remembered something that the others might be interested in hearing. "Oh, by the way, General Sheppard put in a request for permission to marry Doctor Weir."  
  
Despite himself, Daniel enjoyed seeing the incredulous expression on Jack and Mitchell's faces at that particular bombshell. He'd failed to surprise them with the news that John Sheppard was choosing to remain on Atlantis even after his promotion to General- rank had its privileges, one of which, as far as John was concerned, being his ability to stay where he wanted so long as he had the approval of Stargate Command and Homeworld Security- so it was good to finally tell them _something_ that neither of them had been expecting.  
  
" _What_?" Mitchell said, incredulously staring at his old teammate. "John and _Weir_? _Married_?"  
  
"I know; surprising, isn't it?" Daniel said, grinning casually as he looked over at his friends. "Just… don't mention it to anyone, will you? They'd appreciate the IOA _not_ finding out yet; it's one of the reasons it took them this long to make anything official-"  
  
"Wait; are you saying they've been involved for a _while_ now?" Jack asked, staring incredulously at Daniel. "Why didn't you _tell_ us?"  
  
"Well, it hasn't been going on for _that_ long…" Daniel said, a slightly mischievous smile on his face as he looked at his former commanding officers. "I only even knew about it because they wanted the approval of someone from Earth before they made anything official, and I've been keeping it quiet until the time was right."  
  
"Ah," Jack said, nodding slightly before looking inquiringly at Daniel once again. "And you let it _happen_? What happened to regulations?"  
  
"Well, they'd been working together for a while now; I figured it was safe to say that they _couldn't_ be just 'colleagues' by that point anyway, so adding any new dynamics to their relationship could hardly interfere with their duties," Daniel said dismissively. "I kept an eye on them in case it _did_ interfere with their duties, but, when it didn't, I told them they were free to get married if they wanted to."  
  
Of course, Daniel was keeping a few details about the relationship between Sheppard and Weir private even now. In reality, the relationship between the overall and military heads of Atlantis had been developing for a good eight years at least, but it was only recently that the two Atlantis commanders had felt comfortable enough to start making it more official than just 'dating' on the city when they got the chance.  
  
Ever since Atlantis had nearly been destroyed by the Asurans during their attempt to 'relocate' the Lost City, leaving Weir (Along with other inhabitants of the city) badly injured and near-death, it had become increasingly common knowledge (In the right circles, which consisted mainly of the senior Atlantis staff- as the friends of the couple, they'd found out pretty quickly- and Daniel- as the head of Stargate Command, the two had felt it their 'duty' to tell him about the change in their relationship) that Sheppard harboured more-than-professional feelings for the Atlantis commander, but they'd never actually managed to do anything about it on a public scale other than some small private dates around the city.  
  
Up until now, apart from the Atlantis staff, Daniel was one of the few people who knew about it, and he'd kept it secret as much as he could; he'd put them on unofficial 'probation' in case their feelings interfered with their work, but after nothing had happened for a few months, he'd secretly contacted them with the news that they were allowed a little 'leeway' so long as they stayed professional.  
  
In many ways, he'd been prepared to give John and Elizabeth a chance to be together because, in many ways, their relationship just reminded Daniel of what he and Sam had never had the chance to have…  
  
He'd lost his chance to be with the woman _he_ loved.  
  
He couldn't bring himself to deny John Sheppard that chance; they'd rarely worked together, but Daniel had come to regard the man as a good friend on their rare missions side-by-side, and he didn't want the man to lose his chance at happiness the way Danielhad lost _his_.  
  
Once again, silence briefly settled over the table as the three men silently clinked their glasses together in a toast to the happy couple- it may have taken a while for them to make it official, but it was better late then never- until Mitchell looked inquiringly over at Daniel.  
  
"So… talking of relationships… you didn't invite Vala to this little get-together, huh?" he asked casually.  
  
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Mitchell knew he'd made a mistake; instantly, Daniel turned and glared in his direction, his glasses almost _emphasising_ the stare rather than detracting from it.  
  
" _No_ ," he said coldly as he stared at Mitchell. " _I didn't_."  
  
"Uh… Danny?" Jack said, looking in concern at his friend. "I know it's a bit of a touchy subject for you and all, but you can't just-"  
  
" _Don't_ , Jack," Daniel stated, turning to look at him. "You even _think_ about mentioning _anything_ to do with forgiving her after… doing _that_ , and I'll be leaving, got me? I know you mean well, but I came here to spend some time with old friends; I did _not_ come here to hear your opinions on my relationships, OK?"  
  
"Relationships?" Jack retorted, placing his glass back down on the desk as he glared at Daniel. "Daniel, you haven't had a _single_ 'relationship' with a woman- _any_ sort of relationship, I might add; you aren't even _friends_ with any women these days as far as I know- for the past ten _years_! I _think_ I'm within my rights as your friend to talk about your last-"  
  
" _She was_ NOT _the last_!" Daniel yelled, glaring over at Jack, his voice suddenly dropping to a low whisper; even almost a decade after he'd become one of the most prominent men on the planet, Daniel hated attracting attention to himself.  
  
"There was never _anything_ like… like _that_ … between Vala and I," Daniel continued in a lower voice as he glared at his old friend. "She was a good friend, yes, but there have been exactly _two_ women in my life whom I have had anything that, in my opinion, _deserves_ to be called a 'relationship' in that sense, and _one_ of them never even knew how I felt about her! _She_ was the last, Jack; Vala was never even a _possibility_ for me, no matter _if_ I grew to trust her or not!"  
  
"Yeah… OK… gotcha," Jack said, exchanged concerned glances with Mitchell. Daniel may be a calm person normally, but when it was just the three of them (Or five, if Teal'c or Jonas managed to arrange some time off for the reunions), particularly around this time of year, it seemed as though Daniel always took the chance to vent his own self-loathing, knowing that they wouldn't judge him. "Look, I _know_ I was a bit over the line there, but-"  
  
" _No_ , 'over the line' would have been to ask if there'd _been_ anybody recently; bringing up _Vala_ and talking about her like I felt _anything_ for her in _that_ sense pushed you to a point where the line isn't even on the same _planet_ as you," Daniel growled as he stared at Jack. "You _know_ what she meant to me, Jack… you _know_ how I felt about her… and you _dare_ to _suggest_ I _move on_?"  
  
"Daniel, we're just trying to _help_ -" Mitchell interjected.  
  
" _Help_?" Daniel retorted, turning around to glare at Mitchell. " _Nothing_ can _HELP_ me ' _move on_ '; don't sit there and tell me what you _think_ I need!"  
  
As he stared at Mitchell, rage burning in his eyes- the only other emotion, besides grief or numbness, that his friends had ever really seen there since that dark day ten years ago- Daniel slowly bowed his head, continuing to speak in a lower voice. "I can't even close my eyes any more, Cam… I can't close my eyes… every time I dream… I see _her_ … gasping for air… in pain… unable to understand… unable to _see_ … and I can't help her… I couldn't help Sha're… I couldn't help her…"  
  
As their friend continued to lower his head, pressing it against the table as his body began to shake with small, silent sobs, Jack and Mitchell slowly stood up and walked over to stand behind Daniel, both of them looking slightly awkwardly at Daniel before turning to face each other.  
  
"Damn…" Mitchell whispered, looking at Jack as he indicated Daniel. "It always gets him at this time of year, doesn't it?"  
  
Neither of them needed to say anything else; they both knew what 'this time of year' meant.  
  
"Yeah…" Jack replied, as he looked sympathetically at the young man who'd become the younger brother he'd never had. "I guess that's why I always come here; to ensure he's got _somebody_ to help him through this."  
  
Looking back at their friend, Daniel's two former commanders could only stare sadly as the former archaeologist sobbed silently on the table, pausing for a moment before Jack moved over to sit down beside his friend.  
  
"Let it out, Danny…" he whispered softly, staring sympathetically at his friend. "Let it out… I've got you."  
  
"I loved her, Jack…" Daniel whispered, his face still pressed against his arms and the table, not even looking up as Mitchell sat down on the other side of him to place another comforting hand on his other shoulder. "I loved her… and she never _knew_ …"  
  
Every time he heard those words, Jack was once again reminded of just how much Sam's loss had hurt Daniel. In some ways, Daniel loosing Sam had been an even greater blow than when Jack had lost Charlie; at least Charlie, for all their arguments, had always _known_ that Jack had loved him.  
  
Daniel had never even had the chance to _tell_ Sam how he felt… and even now, whenever the five remaining members of SG-1 met at any time- they tended not to count Vala as a member after the 'argument' between her and Daniel at the funeral- it was always clear that the fact that Daniel hadn't told Sam how he felt still tore him up inside. Oh, most of the time, Daniel could appear to be coping with his loss, almost as though it had never happened, or, at least, that he'd managed to get over it…  
  
Then there were the days when something happened to remind him of Sam, and he was left crying his heart out as the memories overwhelmed him. The most regular of these occasions, of course, was the date of the 'anniversary' of Sam's death, a date that they were rapidly approaching already, when it only took the slightest reference to anything related to Sam- or romance in general- to leave him crying.  
  
The remaining members of SG-1 had always tried to help Daniel cope with it, but they'd never been able to succeed; after all, there was no _specific_ 'problem' that Daniel was having in coping with Sam's death. Daniel hadn't become suicidal because of it, he often made an active attempt to get over his depression, he _knew_ that he should move on from her death…  
  
He just _couldn't_.  
  
His friends generally assumed that the reason Daniel was unable to really move on was that he didn't know what had actually _happened_ to Sam when she died. After he'd first been given command of the SGC following the peace conference with the Ori- following him spending some time off to try and 'get over' the worst of his immediate grief, as well as making arrangements for the funeral, which had resulted in him being absent from the original conference himself- Daniel had gone to every length possible to work out what had happened to Sam.  
  
He'd even gone so far as to contact Sam's ex-fiancé, police detective Pete Shanahan, and have _him_ go over the evidence in case a fresh eye turned up new information, but it had all resulted in nothing. The security camera footage of the corridors or the office had turned up nothing new- there'd been a momentary fault in the viewing system in the office itself, but the cameras in the corridor outside hadn't shown anybody entering or leaving the room at the time. Teleportation had been considered, but all spaceships that were both near Earth at the time of death and equipped with a teleportation device had checked their logs and discovered nothing to suggest the teleporters had been used at the time. Sam's body hadn't shown any traces of a disease in the autopsy or her last medical check-ups, there was nothing in the office that could have made her sick, nobody else had become ill after touching the body…  
  
She'd just… _died_.  
  
Everyone knew that there had to be more to it than that, but they'd never been able to figure out _what_ that was.  
  
Right now, however, neither Daniel, Jack or Mitchell wanted to dwell on what they couldn't change. Daniel just wanted to cry, and Jack and Mitchell were just going to be there for him.  
  
As much as all of them hated to admit it, when Daniel was in this kind of state, it was all any of them could do.

* * *

A few hours later, Jack and Mitchell having departed for their respective hotels after making arrangements to see Daniel before they went back home, Daniel found himself sitting in his house once again, listlessly sitting on his bed as he stared at some of the photographs by his bed. As it had been since his return to Earth from Abydos, his single picture of Sha're sat there, her beautiful smile staring at him from the picture, forever immortalized in a way that she herself had not been.

After one of their SG-1 'reunions' had resulted in most of them getting remarkably drunk, Jonas had once asked Daniel why he still kept that picture there, given his feelings for Sam; Daniel, even in his current condition, had simply stared coldly at Jonas, and informed him that, merely because he mourned Sam's loss, he didn't _not_ love Sha're; he'd just… loved her in a different way from Sam.  
  
That attitude was further reflected by the wide assortment of photographs gathered around Sha're's own, consisting of pictures of his various teammates on SG-1.  
  
Whether the pictures showed SG-1 in their uniforms at the Alpha Site or off-duty in casual clothes, whether commanded by Jack O'Neill or Cameron Mitchell- hell, Daniel even had a shot of the team when _Jonas_ was a member, even if it didn't feature _him_ \- they all focused on the group of people who'd become Daniel's closest friends over the last two decades of his existence.  
  
Then, of course, he had the _other_ photos; the photos that he only took out when he was alone and at his lowest...  
  
The photos that were uniquely of him and Sam.  
  
There hadn't been that many of them, of course- they hadn't often had the opportunity to spend leisure time together on their own, particularly in the last couple of years, something that Daniel had always regretted- but those few that he did have, Daniel had come to treasure more than any of the artefacts he'd acquired in his career. Him and Sam working on some puzzle in their labs… him and Sam exploring ruins they'd discovered on their recent trip through the 'gate… him and Sam just sitting around on one of their few nights off…  
  
However, in pride of place on his table, positioned in front of all the others, there was the picture that simultaneously made him smile and made his heart break when he looked at it.  
  
The picture of him, Sam, and Cassandra in the park, shortly after Cassie's arrival on Earth, before her adoption by Janet had been finalised.  
  
Sometimes, in his darker moments, he looked at that picture, and found himself imagining that he and Sam had actually _been_ a family, with Cassie as _their_ daughter rather than Janet's.  
  
He'd never told it to Cassie, of course- if nothing else, as the head of Stargate Command, Daniel doubted his base's chief medical officer wanted to know about his occasional fantasies that she'd been _his_ daughter rather than her mother's- but still, he continued to treasure those moments he spent with Cassandra Fraiser.  
  
If nothing else, she was one of the few people he saw on a regular basis who fully understood why he felt the way he did at times.  
  
Sam may not have been her _actual_ mother, or even her _adopted_ mother, but Cassie had always regarded her as a very dear aunt, and, like Daniel, the loss had struck her deeply, if not as deeply as it had affected him.  
  
"Sam…" Daniel whispered softly, reaching up to trace her smiling face in the photograph with one finger, his eyes glistening with unshed tears.  
  
Even after a decade of trying to cope without her, he couldn't do it.  
  
He couldn't forget her.  
  
She'd captured his heart in ways that not even Sha're had managed to do so, challenging him on an intellectual level even as she completed him on a level that was almost _spiritual_ …  
  
And he'd lost her before he even truly had the chance to have her.  
  
As a small sob escaped his lips, Daniel placed the photograph back on his bedside table and began to shrug off his shirt for bed.

* * *

Barely a couple of hours after falling asleep, the former archaeologist sat sharply up in his bed, and then glanced at his watch and realised that it was only two o'clock in the morning.

"What the…?" Daniel muttered to himself, staring incredulously at the clock on his wall. Ever since he'd become the commander of the Stargate Program, he'd become increasingly good at 'timing' his body to wake up when it was time for him to go to work- to the extent that he always woke up a few minutes before his alarm went off- and here he was, wide awake five whole _hours_ before he was due into work?  
  
Then he sensed someone in the room, and he instinctively shifted his attention into spotting where he'd last put the zat gun he always kept in his room.  
  
As commander of the SGC, and (More importantly) as the man who'd played an important role in the defeat of Anubis and the Ori, he'd been aware from the beginning that he'd probably attract more than a few problems from anybody who still hung on to their old loyalty to their Ascended 'masters', and had taken to keeping a gun close by him whenever he went out or went to sleep. Some people might have called it paranoid, but he preferred to make sure that nobody would have the opportunity to get even with him for playing an important role in depriving them of their 'gods'.  
  
If nothing else, he refused to give them the satisfaction of killing him, no matter _how_ much he may sometimes want to be reunited with Sam…  
  
"Hello, Dan'iel," the figure said.  
  
Daniel's attempts to grab the zat gun halted instantly.  
  
Only two people had ever called him that in his entire life- the other Abydonians had often teasingly called him 'Doc'tor Dan'iel' on a regular basis rather than just 'Dan'iel'- and one of them had been dead for seventeen years.  
  
But the _other_ one…  
  
" _Skaara_?" Daniel yelled incredulously, grabbing his glasses and placing them on his nose even as he turned on his bedside light to stare incredulously at his Abydonian brother-in-law.  
  
A brother-in-law who, according to everything Daniel had heard from Sam, Jack, Teal'c and Jonas, had been Ascended ever since the destruction of Abydos, and was thus bound by their rules of non-intervention just as much as Daniel himself had been.  
  
If Skaara was here, something must have happened to prompt him to bend those rules and try and give Daniel at least an _idea_ of what they might soon be facing.  
  
In which case, it was almost certainly going to be a very _big_ problem.  
  
"What are you doing here?" Daniel asked, sitting up in bed as he stared anxiously at his 'deceased' brother-in-law, his confusion clear on his face. "I mean, after your Ascension, I always assumed you'd never-"  
  
"I have little time," Skaara interrupted, looking apologetically at his old friend. "I must warn you of a grave danger, Dan'iel.  
  
"The Ori have returned."


	3. How to Survive the Sangraal

" _What_?" Daniel yelled, staring incredulously at Skaara. "The Ori have _returned_? But _how_ ; I thought the Sangraal was meant to _destroy_ them?"

"It would have done so… if you had completed it _yourself_ ," Skaara explained. Despite his words, however, his tone showed no anger at Daniel; he simply nodded as he spoke, accepting that he'd had to do things the way he'd done them.

"Excuse me?" Daniel said, looking at Skaara in confusion. "But I gave Sam and Vala _specific_ instructions on how to complete the Sangraal in case I didn't get there in time in the _Odyssey_ ; it should have worked _perfectly_ even if I _wasn't_ there…"

"The Sangraal's construction is more than just a simple matter of putting the right components in the right places, Dan'iel," Skaara explained as he looked at his brother-in-law. "To properly activate the Sangraal in a manner that would allow it to achieve its purpose of defeating the Ori, it would require key psychic 'suggestions' to be implanted by Merlin as certain components were implanted."

"Psychic… suggestions?" Daniel said, staring in confusion at Skaara. "You mean… Merlin was _refining_ the materials of the Sangraal on a _sub_ conscious level even as I put it together?"

"Precisely," Skaara said, nodding at Daniel. "You would have been unaware of this when you were constructing it yourself, but even as you created the components, Merlin was psychically encoding them with the power and knowledge he acquired as one of the Ascended. Even the materials that Vala and Samantha used in the final stages of construction had been psychically 'refined' when you originally created them…"

"But, since _I_ didn't stick them together _myself_ , they weren't properly 'encoded' for the final part of the plan to pay off?" Daniel asked, a growing sense of despair growing in his chest. He couldn't _believe_ this; not only were the Ori still… 'alive' (If such a term could apply to beings who didn't even have an actual physical _body_ any more), but they were 'alive' because of something _he'd_ done?

Admittedly, given that he'd been the captive of the _Odyssey_ and the IOA at the time the Sangraal had needed to be completed by Sam and Vala if it was going to do _anything_ , so it wasn't like he'd had much _choice_ in the matter of who finished the Sangraal, but maybe if he'd done something differently…

"But what did it _do_?" he asked, forcing his mind back to the matter at hand; blaming himself about what he might or might not have done differently wouldn't make a difference at the moment. "If it didn't _kill_ the Ori, why did the Priors lose their powers? I thought they took their abilities from a direct link to the Ori; why did they power down if the Ori _weren't_ dead?"

"You are correct; the Priors _do_ draw their powers from the Ori," Skaara replied, nodding slightly at Daniel. "However, the weapon did do _some_ damage to the Ori, even if it was not a _total_ success. If you had completed it yourself, the Sangraal would have 'disrupted' the energy dimension that the Ori exist on, thus reverting them to simple energy, lacking a form or consciousness. When activated in its condition at that time, however, the Sangrall merely 'shunted' the Ori onto a lower plane of existence than that inhabited by the other Ascended."

"Oh, and on that lower plane, they didn't possess the same kind of 'link' to the Priors as they had before?" Daniel asked. It was a long shot, true, but it seemed like as good a guess as any to explain what had _actually_ happened to the Ori forces…

"Precisely," Skaara said, nodding in approval. "Normally, the Ori would have been able to restore themselves to their original plane of existence using the energy of their worshippers, but since they had sent so many of their most devoted followers, as well as the vast majority of their Priors, to the invasion of this galaxy, leaving their followers in their home galaxy without anybody to enforce belief in them…"

"Such a large-scale demonstration of the apparent _failure_ of faith in the Ori meant that nobody actually _believed_ in them any more, so they couldn't 'recharge'…" Daniel concluded, nodding thoughtfully as he processed what Skaara had told him. He had to admit, it certainly made _sense_ ; with the Ori shunted down to a lower plane of existence, thus cutting their followers such as the Priors from their enhanced powers, belief in the Ori _should_ have dropped to such an extent that the Ori could _never_ have 'recharged'.

However, if some Ori followers had actually _continued_ to believe in the Ori, even after all that, and managed to gather enough of the Ori's old followers together…

"You're saying… there are still some people out there who actually _believe_ in the Ori?" Daniel said, staring incredulously at Skaara. "But… but _how_? After everything we've _told_ the galaxy about them, how could _anybody_ still believe that they're _gods_?"

"What people believe is their own concern, Dan'iel; their reasons for choosing the path of Origin are their own, and I cannot change them," Skaara explained, his expression neutral as he looked at his brother-in-law. "It is most likely the promise of Ascension that draws worshippers to them, but that is not relevant to our current problem. What is important is that the Ori are steadily growing in power from their worshippers, both on Earth and in the other parts of the galaxy; it shall not be long before the link between the Priors and the Ori is once again strong enough to give the Priors access to their past abilities, once again allowing them to use the Ori technology-"

"To start their attempts to convert the Milky Way to Origin, thus allowing them to gather the energy and power to defeat the Ancients?" Daniel said, looking anxiously at Skaara. "But… but this isn't the kind of thing that can just _happen_ ;why didn't you mention this to me _before_ now?"

"Dan'iel…" Skaara said, looking apologetically at his friend, "you know as well as I do that I cannot interfere in the affairs of the world. Even when you witnessed Anubis's attempts to acquire the Eye of Ra, you could do nothing against him until you _knew_ that such a plan would be successful unless you took action, and only then because we had learned of the coming of Anubis by ourselves using the technology you had given us."

Despite his general hatred of thinking too much about his time when he'd been Ascended- he always felt as though he should have been able to do more for Jack and Teal'c that just _be_ there for them- Daniel knew instantly what Skaara meant. The only reason he'd managed to get away with bending the rules enough to contact Jack about Anubis's plans was that the Abydonians already knew about Anubis and would probably have contacted the SGC to ask for help _anyway_. Daniel was just able to give Jack some more detailed information about what was at stake, without telling Jack anything that could have helped him deal with Anubis more easily.

But if similar circumstances to the Eye of Ra crisis applied to the situation he and Skaara were facing at the _moment_ …

"I don't suppose you can tell me how I _might_ have found out about the Ori?" he asked, looking critically at the Ascended Abydonian before him.

"Dan'iel-" Skaara began.

"No, c'mon, all you have to do is tell me when I make a correct _guess_ ," Daniel retorted, his expression becoming harsh as he glared at the young man who'd become like a brother to him during his year on Abydos. "The Ori were going to send their followers after the Stargate? We'd discover an Ori battlecruiser approaching Dakara or Langara? A Prior would drop in on a world and try and convert it to Origin?"

"You know as well as I, Dan'iel…" Skaara said, looking patiently at his old friend. "I can tell you nothing that you can use to resolve the crisis that you now face-"

" _And you think I give a_ shit _about the rules, Skaara_?" Daniel yelled, getting out of bed, uncaring about the fact that he was only wearing pyjama trousers, and walking over to stand in front of Skaara. "I've spent the last ten _years_ unable to give anything much more than a _basic_ interest; what makes you think I _care_ about your precious _rules_ when the fate of the galaxy _itself_ could hang in the balance? You know, when it comes to the whole 'non-interference' rule, I'm not sure whether Oma's lot or the rest of them are more annoying; at least _they_ don't give us _just_ enough to provide some slight help while simultaneously leaving us wanting more information ll the time!"

"Dan'iel…" Skaara began, looking sympathetically at his brother-in-law, "I understand that you have been upset since the loss of Samantha-"

"YOU'RE FUCKING RIGHT I'M UPSET!" Daniel roared, lashing out with a punch that almost caused the plaster of his wall to crack; he may not care much about his appearance any more, but Daniel Jackson could still pack a powerful punch when the need arose. Barely even registering the pain in his fist, Daniel spun around as though about to punch another wall…

Then his eyes fell on the picture of him, Sam and Cassie, sitting smiling on the park bench all those years ago, and Daniel froze, this fresh reminder of _why_ he was in this kind of mood

For a moment, there was silence in the room, and then Daniel bowed his head and stared at his hands.

"Oh God…" he whispered softly, as he turned around to look back at Skaara, faint tears in his eyes. "Skaara… what have I _become_ …?"

Skaara smiled sympathetically.

"You are only human, Dan'iel," he said, a soft, understanding smile on his face as he walked over to place a comforting hand 'on' Daniel's shoulder; his intangible nature prevented him actually making contact, but the gesture was appreciated nevertheless. "It is natural that you should grieve for the love you never had the chance to enjoy, especially when the mystery of her death remains…"

Somehow, Skaara's words just brought further tears to Daniel's eyes.

"I loved her, Skaara…" Daniel whispered, as he looked back at his brother. "I loved Sha're too, but Sam… she just… just…"

"She completed you in a way no other had ever done," Skaara said simply.

"Yeah…" Daniel said, nodding slowly as he looked at the picture by his bed, sighing once more. "I just… why can't I _forget_ it? I saw my parents die just as horribly, but I don't dream about _them_ any more; why do I still remember _Sam's_ death so clearly…?"

One again, silence briefly filled the room, before Skaara spoke once more.

"Her death signified the fall," he said simply.

Daniel's eyes widened.

"What?" he said, his voice a low whisper as he lifted his head out of his hands, staring at the pictures in front of him as he tried to process what he'd just heard. "Her death signified the _fall_? The fall of _what_? What are you-?"

Spinning around to look at where Skaara had been standing, Daniel was only partially surprised to see that Skaara was no longer there; evidently, he'd come too close to crossing the line for him to want to stay there any more. On the bright side, Daniel hadn't 'heard' the familiar signs of one of the Ascended being taken away against their will by the others- having lived through it when he faced Anubis and witness it happen to Morgan in Atlantis, he'd come to recognise it- so at least Skaara was probably all right…

 _But what did he_ mean _by that_? Daniel mused, staring in confusion at the place where Skaara had been standing mere moments ago. _'Her death signified the fall'? The fall of_ what _? And what does that have to do with-?_

 _Wait_.

If he'd been anybody else, Daniel would have dismissed it as his grief latching on to a fragile hope.

But he was him, Skaara was Skaara, and the facts he had were the facts that he'd need to use to crack this thing.

After spending almost a year in Skaara's company, he'd grown to know Skaara almost as well as Kasuf and Sha're had, despite them having known him for far longer than Daniel had, and he knew for a fact that Skaara's conversations _always_ stayed on topic; when he'd wanted to talk to Daniel about anything on Abydos, Skaara had always told Daniel everything he knew about the subject, and remained on topic until he had nothing else he could tell Daniel about whatever they were discussing.

In other words, he wouldn't have made that last comment about Sam's death signifying the 'fall' unless he was _still_ talking about the revived threat of the Ori. He may have Ascended, but unlike Oma, who practically _specialized_ in never giving straight answers to questions, Skaara couldn't phrase something in an enigmatic manner no matter how hard he tried; once you knew how Skaara's mind worked, it was easy enough to work out what he was saying.

In which case, if Daniel was interpreting his last comment correctly…

 _Sam's death is the reason the Ori are regaining their old power_? Daniel thought to himself, staring in confusion at the wall before him.

He couldn't understand how _that_ could make sense. As much as he loved Sam, her presence here couldn't have made _that_ much difference to what happened to the Ori followers after the conference, could it? Even if she hadn't died, Sam wouldn't even have been involved in the treaty when it was being prepared; that had been left up to him, Vala, and the presidential-appointed ambassadors…

Suddenly, Daniel froze, a thought running through him with a lightning-like intensity that left him chilled to the bone.

 _But he hadn't been there_.

He'd _meant_ to go, of course, but after discovering Sam's dead body, he'd been unable to go through with the conference, and had left the SGC to make the necessary arrangements for Sam's funeral while simultaneously trying to cope with his grief about her death (Not that the last part had done much good), leaving the rest of the 'team' to attend to the treaty on their own.

He'd asked about the conference when he came back to invite the SGC staff to the memorial, of course, but when he heard that everything had gone well, coupled with the… argument… he'd had with Vala at the memorial service distracting him from the immediate issues, he'd just never got around to really looking much at the terms of the treaty with the Ori forces; he'd just been satisfied that they'd all come to an agreement and left it at that.

 _Could that be it_? Daniel mused to himself, horror slowly seeping through him as he thought about the ramifications of what that idea suggested. _Could somebody have killed Sam… just to make sure_ I _wouldn't be at the conference?_

Calming himself down, Daniel tried to look at the situation as logically as he could, analysing all available data before he came to a decision.

Firstly, the fact remained that they'd never been able to determine exactly _what_ Sam had died of; there was nothing in her blood samples to suggest a poison or illness of any kind, and even that gash on their forehead couldn't be explained.

Secondly, Sam's death hadn't interrupted anything _she'd_ been working on; her staff had managed to finish their work on the portable version of Merlin's device shortly after her own death, and everything else she'd been working on at the time was relatively small-scale.

Thirdly, the only thing that her death had actually _changed_ \- apart from distracting the medical staff with their investigations into what had actually _happened_ \- was that Daniel hadn't attended the conference to discuss the terms of the Ori's surrender.

Fourthly, of everyone attending the conference, Daniel alone knew _entirely_ what the Ori were capable of; Vala's experience with the Priors was limited at best, and none of the other staff had ever even _met_ a Prior up until then, whereas he'd actually _become_ one for a brief while…

 _But would that have actually been_ that _important_? Daniel asked himself, staring thoughtfully at the pictures on his desk as he mused over the possibilities Skaara's visit had awakened in his mind. _I mean, even if_ I _wasn't there, Vala would still have been there, and she knows_ just _as much about the Ori as I do_ …

After a few moments of silence, Daniel groaned and leaned back onto his bed, clutching his forehead with one hand.

"Great…" he muttered, as he stared up at the ceiling. "Looks like I'll have to do the one thing I _don't_ want to do to find out if this theory's right."

Tomorrow morning, for the first time in almost a decade, Daniel Jackson would have to willingly seek out the company of Vala Mal Doran.


	4. Making Plans

As he blinked his eyes open to see the morning sun shining in through his curtains, Daniel rolled his eyes as he squinted for those few brief moments before he could get his glasses on.

If there was even the _chance_ that what Skaara had told him was accurate, Daniel would need to talk to the only other person on Earth who might know more about the Ori than he did, regardless of the fact that said person was the one woman Daniel wished he would _never_ have to speak to again.

Specifically, he would have to go and talk to the former thief and SG-1 member known as Vala Mal Doran.

 _Great_ … he mused to himself once more, as he placed his glasses on and reached over to turn on his mobile phone where it lay beside his bead. _The last thing I want to do, and I'm going to have to do it to save the world._

There was no two ways about it, _somebody_ up there had it in for him for some reason. If he hadn't _known_ that the Ascended couldn't interfere in human affairs, and that the Ori… wouldn't be allowed to do it (He still wasn't entire clear on whether they were actually _back_ or if they were just _coming_ back while still lacking their old power) he'd think that one of them was getting back at him for breaking the rules or interfering in their plans.

Still… on the other hand, no matter how he felt about the whole thing, he had to admit that he was almost looking forward to the first part of his plan to find answers. They may have never _all_ been on the same team as each other, back when the SGC had been forced to struggle against the Goa'uld and the Ori, but they'd all become close friends over the last few years.

Having to work with them- _just_ the three of them, maybe even five if he could manage to make contact with Teal'c and Jonas, although such a thing was unlikely- to save the world?

It was almost like the old days…

Smiling wistfully at the thought, Daniel dialled the number on his phone and raised it to his ear.

" _Hello_?" a voice said on the other end of the line.

"Hey Jack," Daniel said, smiling slightly as he almost _heard_ Jack start in surprise. It had been a long time since he'd just called his friend _this_ soon after a past meeting; Daniel tended to keep to himself for a while after the meetings, not out of any real hostility, but just because he found it hard to really make much effort to stay in touch with his old friends.

Daniel just wished it was for a better reason.

"Sorry to bother you at this time of day," Daniel continued, unwilling to give Jack time to protest; if Skaara's warning was right, they had to get moving as soon as possible if Daniel was going to decide what to do, "but I need to see you and Mitchell as soon as possible; something's come up that I need your help with."

"Our _help_?" Jack replied, sounding clearly surprised at that. " _Daniel, you're_ head _of the SGC now; you've got an entire_ staff _of people to help you out with anything you need doing-_ "

"I need someone I _know_ I can _trust_ ," Daniel interrupted, his voice calm and collected as he addressed his old friend. "If what I've been told is right, I need to _know_ I can rely on the people who are helping me deal with it."

For a moment, there was silence on the other end of the line, and then Jack spoke once more.

" _What happened, Daniel_?" he asked, sounding as though he was uncertain how to respond to his friend's request.

If it had been anybody else on the other end of the line asking him that question- even if it had been Mitchell or Teal'c- Daniel would have just said that he'd explain when they met and leave it at that.

But this was Jack O'Neill, the only other person left alive from the original Abydos expedition (Ferretti had been killed during a brief mission to Atlantis that had resulted in the destruction of no less than _three_ Wraith hive-ships), and, hence, the only other person left alive who'd bonded with Skaara almost as much, if not more, than he had.

If anyone could understand why Daniel was taking this information so seriously simply because of who it was from, it was Jack O'Neill.

"I was visited by Skaara," Daniel replied simply.

For a moment, there was silence at the other end of the line, and then Jack replied with an equally simple response.

" _We'll be there_ ," he said simply.

With that, the retired Major General hung up the phone at his end of the line, leaving Daniel to get up and begin changing.

* * *

About an hour later, Daniel was sitting in O'Malley's bar once more, sipping at a newly-purchased bottle of mineral water- it was still too early to start drinking alcohol- as he kept his eyes fixed on the door, resisting the temptation to glance at his watch. He wasn't entirely clear on how far Jack and Mitchell's hotels were from the bar, and the traffic was typically rather busy at this time of day, so he was prepared to give them a bit more time before he started worrying whether or not they'd be showing up.

Right now, he was more focused on what they could do when the two of them got there.

Even if the Ori _had_ returned, Daniel couldn't do anything about it unless he was able to acquire definite proof about their continued presence on Earth; he may have been the commander of the SGC these days, but he still couldn't order every old Ori follower to be gathered up and interrogated based on nothing more than Skaara's word. It may have been good enough for him to _try_ and investigate what was happening, but it wouldn't be enough to explain why he was bringing them all in to ask if they knew anything about the Ori coming back.

No, if he was going to find out any information about the Ori presence, he'd need to go to the right sources about it, _without_ attracting too much attention.

It was only bad luck that, in this case, the 'right sources' happened to be the one old member of SG-1 that he hadn't spoken to in the last ten years, ever since their last encounter had culminated in him practically throwing her out the door. She still kept in occasional contact with Mitchell, from what he could gather, but that was about it; she hadn't even tried to speak to him, and he hadn't been interested in talking to her either.

"Jackson?" a voice said to him from off to one side. "You OK?"

Shaking his head slightly- he'd been so lost in his thoughts that he'd almost forgotten that he'd been waiting for somebody- Daniel glanced in the direction of the voice, smiling slightly as he saw Cameron Mitchell and Jack O'Neill standing opposite his table, each dressed in the same clothes as yesterday and looking anxiously at Daniel as he sat before them.

Looking at Mitchell with a grim smile, Daniel shook his head.

"No… I'm not," he said simply, as he indicated two chairs for them to sit down in. "Trust me… I am very, _very_ far from being 'OK', particularly if what I've heard from Skaara is accurate."

"Well, given that Skaara probably _wouldn't_ risk getting stripped and stuck on a barren planet with no memories for no good reason, I think it's safe to say that he was telling you the truth about whatever he said to you," Jack replied, an equally grim expression on his face as the two former leaders of SG-1 sat down opposite their old linguist. "So, what's the crisis? Some sucker after Ancient technology once again? The Asurans are going back to Atlantis? Some lone Goa'uld's discovered how Anubis managed to trick an Ancient into Ascending himself and wants to do it again?"

"The Ori have returned," Daniel replied grimly.

For a moment, there was silence, and then Mitchell looked over critically at Jack.

"You _had_ to try and guess, didn't you?" he said, a harsh expression on his face as he stared at the other man; if it wasn't for the faintly joking gleam in his eyes as he spoke, Daniel would almost have believed that he was genuinely angry with Jack. "I _told_ you that whatever theory you came up _couldn't_ be as bad as what it actually was, but then you go and get my hopes that we're facing something we _might_ have been able to handle…"

"Hey, it's not like I did it _deliberately_ ," Jack retorted, glaring back at Mitchell with equally feigned anger. "I mean-"

"Can we just get down to business?" Daniel interjected, looking critically at the two men as he indicated the seats before him. In the past, he might have been willing to let them continue their 'banter' for a few more minutes- after all, everybody needed a means of letting off steam in stressful situations- but he increasingly found that he had less and less patience for 'jokes' like that ever since Sam's death.

It wasn't that he thought that nobody had the right to be happy if _he_ wasn't happy; he just didn't feel like getting caught up in the good humour and ruining it for everybody else, so he preferred to cut it off before it could really get started.

"Uh… right," Mitchell said, looking apologetically at the archaeologist as he and Jack sat down opposite Daniel. "So, your Abydonian Ascended brother-in-law told you that the Ori _weren't_ destroyed by the Sangraal when we sent it through the Supergate? How does _that_ work?"

"Apparently, there were fine details about the construction of the Sangraal that even I wasn't aware of when I was building it," Daniel explained, his face even grimmer than it had been on the day he'd first discovered Sam's body as he looked around at the two men before him. "Apparently, whenever I created each piece of the Sangraal, I wasn't just consciously deciding to piece it together using Merlin's knowledge. Merlin- or rather, whatever was left of Merlin in my mind- was also… well, from what Skaara told me, it's like he was using psychic 'suggestions' to refine the materials of the Sangraal on a subconscious level as I put them all together, thus making them better 'equipped'- for lack of a better term- to do what I was intending them to do."

"Ah," Jack said, nodding slightly with the familiar blank expression he always got when he was made to listen to information about something that he didn't entirely understand- which, even he had to admit, was something that occurred most of the time. "So… what does that have to do with the Ori being _back_ all of a sudden?"

"Lemme guess; without you there to… 'psychically refine' the materials at the last stage, the Sangraal didn't work properly and it just… _weakened_ the Ori's powers so that they couldn't charge up the Priors or the ships any more?" Mitchell guessed, looking quizzically at Daniel with an anxious expression also apparent on his face.

"Pretty much, yeah," Daniel replied, nodding grimly at his old friend before glancing back towards Jack, who was looking slightly anxiously at the archaeologist; he clearly wasn't sure if this was going to send the archaeologist _further_ into the 'pit' of self-loathing he seemed to have been trapped in since Sam's death.

"Don't worry," Daniel said, raising a reassuring hand as he looked at his old friend, guessing what Jack was thinking. "I'm not going to start blaming myself for _that_ as well."

Despite the fact that his mood was anything but light, Daniel shrugged almost nonchalantly as he looked at the man who'd led them through the Stargate all those years ago, a small smile on his face as he did so. "After all, it's not like I had much choice available when I asked you all to stick the Sangraal together at the last minute for me. I couldn't have known that the Sangraal _needed_ me to be there to finish it off, and there's no sense in me beating myself up about it when, as far as I can see, there was nothing else I could have done short of _forcing_ Woolsey to let me go and finish the Sangraal myself."

"Ah, Woolsey," Jack sighed, rolling his eyes slightly as he remembered the IOA agent who'd tried to paint them all as incompetent idiots the first time he and SG-1 had ever met. "The same old pain as ever, eh?"

Jack may have come to know him better during the Asuran occupation of Atlantis, but he still remembered how Woolsey had been perfectly willing to stick Daniel in stasis on the _chance_ that he might turn out to be a threat, which generally limited any chance Woolsey might have had of receiving a compliment from the now-retired Jack O'Neill.

OK, so the man didn't do that bad a job as the new head of Homeworld Security- he _did_ allow Weir and Daniel relatively free reign to do their various jobs, after all- but Jack _still_ wouldn't be prepared to back Woolsey up if he ever faced a board of inquiry himself unless the outcome affected one of Jack's old friends…

"We don't have time to complain about that right now; we need to figure out how _much_ influence the Ori still have and what we can do about it," Daniel stated, looking coldly at his former commander for a moment before redirecting his gaze to talk to Mitchell as well. "The way I see it, since we haven't heard anything from our various offworld allies about the old Ori battlecruisers charging up or anything like that, it seems like a safe bet that the Ori aren't _quite_ on the same level of power as they were back in the old days. We have no way of knowing how long they've been rebuilding their old power, but something Skaara told me suggests that it's been going on since around the conference, so, if it's taken them this long to attract the notice of the Ancients, it seems a relatively safe bet that it's going to take them a while longer before they're a threat on the same scale as they were in the past."

"What did Skaara say to you that makes you think that?" Mitchell asked, looking inquiringly at the current SGC commander.

"Oh, just… something he said in passing," Daniel replied, deliberately trying to remain neutral in his response.

Inwardly, he wished that he didn't have to lie to his friends; it had _not_ been something Skaara had said 'in passing' that led him to that conclusion, Quite frankly, his comment about Sam's death signifying the 'fall' seemed like a pretty clear reference to the rise of the Ori and the fall of any chance the Milky Way inhabitants might have had of stopping them once and for all…

But Daniel had already made up his mind on that front, however; until he knew for a _fact_ that what had taken place on the day of the conference- or at least had a better idea of what had happened then than he did at the moment- he would _not_ reveal what Skaara had told him about Sam's death 'signifying the fall'. It would be too easy for Jack or Mitchell to assume that he was allowing his grief over Sam's death to cloud his judgement and lead to him making incorrect guesses just because he was so desperate to find some way to undo that tragedy…

It was a tempting idea, true, but he wouldn't do something like that.

He _couldn't_ ; Sam wouldn't want him to risk undoing everything that had happened over the last ten years on a simple _maybe_ , even if it was her life on the line.

Besides, no matter how much he wanted to, he didn't have the right to change over a decade of history on something that was more of a _hope_ than anything else at the moment. Just because he _thought_ Sam's death and his subsequent decision not to attend the conference were the reason the Ori were regaining power at last didn't mean it was _correct_ , and he wouldn't change history just to benefit himself.

However, when he knew for definite that he'd interpreted Skaara's statement correctly, and that Sam's death _was_ connected to the renewed Ori threat…

That would be a _totally_ different proverbial ball game.

Shaking his mind to clear those thoughts- no good dwelling on possibilities until he _knew_ he could do anything about them- Daniel turned back to look at Jack and Mitchell, a resolved expression on his face that concealed anything he might have been thinking earlier.

"The key thing right now is for us to figure out how far the Ori have gone," he said, as he looked over at Jack. "Jack, think you're up to keeping an eye on things at the SGC while Mitchell and I check with a couple of… old friends… to see if they know anything?"

Both Jack and Mitchell exchanged somewhat apprehensive glances at that comment; they could only think of one 'old friend' on Earth who might know anything about the Ori, and while Daniel was definitely the best person to attend to Ori-related matters given his knowledge of the Ancients as a whole, they had to wonder if him talking to _that_ 'old friend' was a good idea…

"Are you _sure_ that's a good idea, Jackson?" Mitchell asked, looking uncertainly at the formerly-disgraced archaeologist. "Maybe you should just leave that to me and Jack…"

" _No_ ," Daniel said, shaking his head in a resolved manner as he stood up and shrugged his coat on, downing the last of his water with one gulp as he looked at his former commanders. "Your concern's appreciated, but if the Ori _are_ involved, I stand a better chance of 'recognising' their presence if they are there- no offence meant, Jack."

"None taken; you have the experience," Jack replied, a neutral expression on his face. Even after all this time, the memories of Daniel's Ascension- not to mention his time as a Prior- were still… touchy… to say the least, and none of the SGC liked to think about them unless they _had_ to.

"Good," Daniel said briefly, before he looked back at Mitchell. "If the Ori are gaining any kind of influence on Earth, these two are our best at learning how powerful they are; after all, the mother of the Orici would be too tempting a prospect for _any_ followers of Origin not to try and 'recruit' her. If there's any chance that we can stop them before their influence has grown too great, we _have_ to try and find out what the situation is."

"And what if they _have_ gone too far?" Jack interjected, looking critically at his old friend. "What if there's no _way_ for us to stop them again?"

Looking over at his old friend, Daniel smiled grimly.

"Then we'll just have to make sure that there are _no circumstances_ that will allow the Ori to regain their power," he said simply. "Remember the note, my friend?"

With that enigmatic comment, Daniel stood up and glanced over at Mitchell.

"Come on, Cam," he said casually, ignoring his friend's confused expression as he indicated the door. "We've got to get going."

With that, Daniel turned around and walked out of the bar, leaving his two former commanding officers to look quizzically at each other.

* * *

Only a moment passed, however, before Jack shrugged apologetically at Mitchell, an almost resigned expression on his face.

"Trust me; when Daniel doesn't tell you something, it's because he has a good reason for it," he said reassuringly; Mitchell may have been Daniel's commanding officer more recently, but, sometimes, Jack's extra nine years' knowledge of what made Daniel Jackson tick gave him a significant edge over his younger counterpart. "You go with him; I'll head over to the SGC and keep things together until you guys get back."

As Mitchell departed to join the archaeologist, Jack leaned back in his chair and sighed.

 _Great_ … he mused to himself, as he looked at the door that his friends had just walked through.

He may not have lied directly to Mitchell, but he _did_ know what Daniel had meant by that last comment about the 'note', as well as the reason for his emphasis on the words 'no circumstances' as he departed.

Unless Jack missed his guess, the archaeologist was almost certainly referring to the infamous note from the future, warning them against going to P4C-940- which, as the SGC would later learn, was the homeworld of the Aschen, the race who could have destroyed the Goa'uld at the cost of simultaneously rendering almost the entire population of Earth sterile to turn it into a massive farmland and 'conquer' the survivors.

The only thing Jack didn't totally understand was how that particular mission- definitely one of their oddest, in his opinion- was meant to help them _now_. He had some ideas, of course, but it was surely all academic without an appropriate solar flare, and the last time he'd checked it was impossible to _predict_ those things…

 _Well_ , he shrugged to himself, as he stood up, tossed a few bills down onto the table, and moved towards the door himself, _no point worrying about that till I know for sure. In the meantime, I'd best get moving; Danny-boy's chair isn't going to sit in itself_.

It said a lot about the seriousness of the situation they might be facing that the former General O'Neill couldn't even bring himself to laugh at the somewhat humorous mental image that sentence evoked in his mind.

If the Ori _did_ come back, without the ability to make another Sangraal, he seriously doubted that the galaxy would survive a _second_ 'Holy War' against those Ascended pains in the ass…

* * *

Around half an hour later, after making a brief call to the SGC to let them know about Jack's temporary return to his old role as base commander while Daniel attended to 'personal matters' in Colorado, Daniel and Mitchell pulled up outside Vala's house, Mitchell feeling apprehensive about what was about to take place while Daniel was just resolves.

As Daniel shifted the gear lever into neutral, Mitchell looked over anxiously at his friend.

"You sure about this, Jackson?" he asked, indicating the house before them. "I mean, you haven't even _spoken_ to Vala in almost ten years; I don't really think she'll be that eager to talk with you now…"

Daniel could only nod grimly.

"I know that, Cam," he replied, as he looked briefly back at his friend before turning his attention back to the door that awaited them. "But, if the Ori _have_ returned… Vala and Tobin are the most likely candidates to know where I should start looking for information"

He sighed slightly as he opened his car door, glancing back at his friend as he did so. "Come on; we've got some questions that need answering."

As he stepped out of the car, however, Daniel had to wonder which answers he was actually hoping to get when he asked them.


	5. The Betrayal of Vala Mal Doran

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies to any Vala fans; this chapter is more than slightly 'anti-Vala', but I do try and explain _why_ she's turned out the way she has so that Vala isn't reflected in a uniquely negative manner; I may not entirely like the woman, but I'm trying to be as fair to her as my plot will allow me to be

As the two of them approached the door of the house that had been home to Vala and Tomin ever since the fall of the Ori, Mitchell found himself briefly reflecting on the reasons _why_ SG-1 had lost touch with the former space pirate after the Ori had been defeated.

Prior to the fall of the Ori, Vala had become a pretty much well-integrated member of the team, joining them on their nights out on the town during their occasional moments of free time- something that, of course, had become increasingly scarce as the Ori continued to advance along the galaxy. She had still made the occasional flirtatious comment to Daniel or Mitchell- he still got embarrassed when he recalled some of the stuff she'd said to his parents during his high school reunion- but, all in all, they tended to ignore it and just enjoy her company. After all, once you got past her somewhat forward attitude, she was actually a rather interesting person to talk to, with a surprising amount of knowledge about the rest of the Milky Way galaxy…

Then Sam had died, Daniel had spent a few days away trying to deal with his grief and arranging the funeral while the rest of SG-1 attended the Ori peace conference (In Mitchell's opinion, the _dullest_ thing he'd ever been to, and he hadn't even been one of the people involved in making the final decisions), and then any chance of something happening between Daniel and Vala had fallen apart at the memorial service they'd held at O'Malley's.

Mitchell still wasn't entirely sure _what_ had happened that day- he'd never really had the chance to talk to Vala about it, and Daniel tended to clam up whenever anything to do with Sam's death was discussed- but he'd gathered some information from Tal'c and Walter, who'd been sitting near to Daniel and Vala when the Argument- as it had come to be known among the SGC- had taken place.

As far as Mitchell had been able to learn, Daniel had been drinking a great deal at the bar in an attempt to get over his renewed grief following the funeral- hardly an intelligent approach, but one that Mitchell could hardly blame him for given the recentness of the loss- and Vala, having also had a couple of drinks, had gone over to the archaeologist and, after they'd talked for a brief while, she'd attempted to kiss him.

With Daniel still reeling emotionally from the loss of the woman he loved, that had, almost unsurprisingly, turned out to be the worst thing Vala could have done, even _if_ she'd subsequently claimed that she'd been trying to help Daniel get over it by giving him something else to focus on.

According to Teal'c and Walter, Daniel had reacted remarkably violently to Vala the moment her lips made contact, practically throwing Qetesh's former host off him and even trying to attack her, yelling that he wasn't in the mood to settle for second best, and he never _would_ be… accompanied by phrases in multiple dialects that definitely _sounded_ less than complimentary. Teal'c had been able to reveal that one of the languages Daniel had been yelling in was Goa'uld, but had declined to explain _specifically_ what the archaeologist had said out of respect for their friendship.

Whatever had been said, the end result had been nothing less than ugly. Even though almost everyone at the SGC knew that Daniel's reaction had been only been that violent because of the amount of alcohol he'd consumed recently- including, of course, his own grief at the death of the woman he'd loved making his temper extremely short- Vala had never been willing to forgive him for what he'd said, and Daniel, angered by her apparent lack of regard for his feelings for Sam, had never been interested in trying to make up for his actions.

Vala had left the party after that confrontation, coldly informing Mitchell and Jack as she passed them on the way to the door that she couldn't understand what she'd _ever_ seen in that man before she got into her car and drove away. When they'd read in the paper a couple of months later, after the Stargate Program had been made public and Daniel had been given command of the facility, that Vala had renewed her marriage to Tomin of Ver Isca, none of them were even surprised that they hadn't been invited to the ceremony.

After all, Vala may have been good company, but, when faced with a choice between still being 'able' to talk to Daniel, or still being 'able' to talk to Vala, the archaeologist just had more people in his 'corner', having been at the SGC for a lot longer than Vala had ever been. Mitchell had made the occasional attempt to patch things up between the two of them, but Daniel couldn't forgive Vala's apparent lack of concern about Sam's death while Vala resented the harsh things Daniel had said to her on that fateful night. In the last ten years, they'd probably exchanged enough words to comprise just over a day's worth of conversation…

And now, here Daniel was, about to question her about the possibility of a renewed Ori presence on the word of his Ascended former brother-in-law.

Mitchell wasn't sure whether he should have tried to bring his earplugs or his boxing gloves to this particular confrontation.

As Daniel walked up to stand in front of the door, he paused and looked back at Mitchell, a grim expression on his face as he looked at the slightly apprehensive former colonel.

"Do me one favour here," he said to his old friend. "If I should… lose control… at any point during these proceedings… calm me down or take over questioning, OK?"

Mitchell nodded.

"Gotcha," he said simply. He didn't need any further explanation for that; Daniel may still have been fundamentally the same person that he always was, always preferring to find the peaceful resolution, but, after the last decade or so, his temper was far from perfect, and he could easily do something that he'd end up regretting the next day.

Smiling briefly in response and gratitude, Daniel turned back to the door before him, reached out towards the handle…

And froze in shock as a faint glow illuminated the house from behind the curtains over an upstairs front window.

A glow that both Daniel and Mitchell knew could only have been caused by two things in this part of the galaxy- and, since it was unlikely that Vala would be visited by an Ancient all of a sudden, that left only the other option.

"A teleporter?" Mitchell said, looking in confusion at his friend. "But… wouldn't you _know_ if Vala was going anywhere?"

"Yeah… I would…" Daniel muttered, nodding grimly as he looked at the window above him. Ever since the defeat of the Ori, the alliance between Earth and the Asgard had become increasingly stronger, with the Asgard race now actively aiding Earth in its technological development, rather than just providing them with the occasional bit of help whenever things got too hot for humanity. They commonly stayed in touch with Earth via Stargate Command, with Daniel and Thor regularly communicating with each other whenever a ship from either of their fleets went out on a mission in case help was needed.

As a result, Daniel knew almost the _exact_ location of every ship in the combined Tau'ri/Asgard Alliance fleet, and, therefore, knew for a _fact_ that neither side could have been responsible for the teleportation he had just witnessed.

If nothing else, as she had officially resigned from her old role as a member of SG-1 after the argument, Vala didn't have the authority to request a direct teleportation from ships on either side, either for herself or for visitors, without going directly to Daniel and asking him to call a ship for her. Vala didn't maintain regular contact with anybody in the SGC who'd have the authority to arrange a teleportation for her, and there was no way that _anybody_ would jeopardise either their position at the SGC or the Asgard/Earth alliance by doing something like this for no good reason (After Loki's attempt to clone Jack, the Asgard had installed secret monitoring devices on all ships to prevent any renegade Asgard stealing one for themselves).

With those facts in mind, coupled with their reason for coming here in the first place, there was only one reason Daniel could think of that somebody would be teleporting into Vala's house…

 _God, I hope I'm_ wrong _for once_ , he thought as he glanced over at Mitchell, the fear on his friend's face making it clear that he'd come to the same conclusion as Daniel had.

"Ori battlecruiser?" Mitchell asked, looking anxiously at his friend.

"Probably," Daniel admitted, sighing grimly as he looked back at the door before him. "It would need to be pretty close to Earth if it _is_ them- those teleporters aren't any more advanced than the Asgard technology- but if Merlin could give me the ability to cloak the _Odyssey_ using the ZPM, it's not impossible to think that the Ori ships could do the same thing with whatever Ori power's charging them up right now."

He may hate to even _consider_ the idea that there could an Ori battlecruiser active in the galaxy once more- after all, even with the best efforts of the Asgard and Earth, they'd still only managed to destroy a couple of fully-powered battlecruisers before their 'link' to the Ori was severed- but he had to face the facts.

If the Ori _were_ back after almost a decade of absence, than the Priors and their ships wouldn't be that far behind them.

"But… even if it _is_ them, what would an Ori ship be doing teleporting somebody into- or out of- Vala's house?" Mitchell asked, looking back at the window in confusion. "It doesn't make any _sense_ …"

"Yeah…" Daniel stated grimly as he looked at the door, noting with a small smile that the thing wasn't locked; at least that made his new plan _somewhat_ easier to put into practice…

"Come on," he said, glancing at Mitchell as he reached into his jacket, his hands closing on the handgun he always hid there these days in case he was ever attacked. "Let's go in and see what's happening."

A silent nod between the two men was all that needed to be exchanged as they entered the door; not even the almost normal interior decorations of the house- something that neither man could have pictured Vala being interested in- prompted a comment from the two men as they began to slowly creep up the stairs, keeping their ears open for any sound.

They didn't have long to wait; they were only half-way up the stairs when they heard a voice talking in one of the rooms off to the side.

"…it proceeds as planned, Blessed Mother," a voice said that neither Daniel or Mitchell had trouble recognising as the voice of the Prior who had once been a village administrator at the time of Daniel's first visit to the Ori galaxy. "The underground conversion proceeds as planned; the 'doctors' who would presume to 'treat' us are already beginning to convert further people to the path of Origin, and the further worlds of the Tau'ri Empire are already proving willing to listen to our words."

"Good," another voice said. "You have pleased me, Prior; this progress is gratifying."

Once again, Daniel and Mitchell didn't need any time to recognise the voice that was speaking right then.

 _Vala_? Mitchell whispered to Daniel, his eyes wide with shock as he tried to process what they'd just heard.

The woman who'd helped them discover the location where Merlin had been hidden away all those years ago… the woman who had single-handedly destroyed the Ori's first attempt to create a Supergate…

She was having a _conversation_ with a _Prior_ about spreading the Ori's influence?

The situation was clearly _far_ more serious than Daniel had ever expected, even in his _worst_ ideas of what they could be facing right now…

"However," the former thief's voice continued, as her two old SG-1 colleagues stared in shock at each other, "you should not presume that our current rate of success means that we have succeeded in our endeavour. Remember what I have instructed you; remain vigilant, do not allow yourselves to become public knowledge, and _especially_ avoid _any_ attempt to move against Daniel Jackson and Stargate Command until the time is right."

"Of course, Blessed Mother," the Prior said, as Daniel and Mitchell continued to creep up the stairs towards the room; more than ever before, Daniel was grateful that the Priors' abilities did _not_ include telepathy, otherwise their current stealth approach would _never_ work. "I shall do all I can to fulfil your instructions; the Lowered One shall remain untouched until the time is right for us to take revenge."

"Excellent," Vala continued, as Daniel and Mitchell took up their positions on either side of the door behind which Vala was speaking, a silent resolve passing between them to wait until the Prior had gone from the room before they moved in. "My husband shall inform me of the full details of our progress when he returns from the flagship; in the meantime, I wish you to return to the world designated as P8X-412 and ensure that they are willing to accept the path of Origin once again. I have a… personal interest there, after all."

"Naturally," the former Administrator replied. There was a brief thumping sound, as though the Prior was striking the ground with his staff, and then the faint sound of a teleporter as the Prior (Presumably) vanished.

Neither Daniel nor Mitchell needed to ask the other what to do now; as soon as the sound of the teleporter had faded, the two men had moved away from the wall, kicked the door open, and charged into the room, pistols instantly trained on Vala as she stood in the middle of the room, dressed in a long white robe resembling that of a Prior. There were a few streaks of grey in her hair, and her face had a few more lines on it than had been there when the three had served together on SG-1, but otherwise Vala's appearance was unaltered.

"Ah, my dear Daniel," she said, looking almost casually over at the former archaeologist. "How nice to see you again after all these-"

She never even got to finish her sentence; tossing his gun aside and grabbing her by the robes, Daniel hauled her up off her feet and slammed her against the wall.

"What the _hell_ are you _doing_?" he roared in her face, Mitchell looking anxiously between the two as though he wasn't sure whether he should be stopping Daniel or letting him attack Vala. "You're working _with_ the Ori? After everything we learned about them, you're actually _helping_ those Ascended _assholes_?!"

"The path of Origin is all, Daniel Jackson; I have seen through the lies that we were presented in the past, and been given a glorious view of the truth behind them," Vala replied, in a blank, calm voice, as though they'd just met for a meal rather than him looking at her like he wanted to punch her in the face. "Like me, you have been deceived by the lies of the Altereans-"

"Oh, just shut _up_!" Daniel yelled, glaring angrily at the woman before him as Mitchell looked anxiously at his surroundings, as though trying to determine the fastest escape. "You've betrayed _everything_ we devoted our _lives_ to achieving! You're working _with_ the people who used you like simple _breeding stock_ to give their armies a leader! I don't give a _fuck_ about the specifics of what you believe now; all I want to know is _WHY_ you're working with _THEM_?"

"Why else?" Vala asked, looking almost nonchalantly at her former love interest. "I learned the truth of Origin, and have dedicated myself to aiding my daughter in her holy quest to bring the truth to our galaxy once-"

"Back up a minute; your _daughter_?" Mitchell interrupted, looking incredulously at Vala. "You're saying that Adria's still alive?"

"Naturally," Vala replied, her voice still calm as she looked over at her former commanding officer. "She is the daughter of gods; like them, she cannot die. She wishes only to bring peace and prosperity to our galaxy; when she contacted me after the conference and explained the true motives behind their attempt to convert our galaxy, I soon felt obliged to help them in their goal. After all, in my ignorance, I had weakened them greatly; now that they had a chance to spread the word of Origin across the galaxy once more, how could I neglect the chance to make up for my sins?"

"But… but Origin's a load of baloney!" Mitchell protested, staring at Vala with an expression that made it clear he was convinced she'd gone mad at some point. "The Ori _don't_ Ascend their followers, Vala; you know that as well as anybody! Why are you following that propaganda?"

"You learned this 'fact' about Origin from an Alterean, did you not?" Vala countered, looking almost critically at Mitchell, although her general expression of almost indifference continued. "How do you know that _they_ did not lie, simply wishing to ensure their continued supremacy-"

"Because they don't tolerate anything that doesn't follow their collective rules, right?" Daniel interjected, looking almost pityingly at Vala, lowering her slightly so that they were on an eye-to-eye level. "Vala, Adria used that line of argument on _me_ when I became a Prior; don't you remember?"

"And you do not agree with that assessment of the Altereans?" Vala asked, turning to face the SGC's latest commander. "You were once Ascended yourself, yet they cast you down because you would not obey their rules, while the Ori freely display their power to all-"

"Correction; the Ori display their _existence_ and just enough information to keep their followers hooked like fish on a line," Daniel retorted, his eyes narrowing as he stared at Vala. "Vala, the Ori may be powerful, but you can't spread enlightenment by terrorising non-believers and stamping down on development. That's what makes the Altereans _better_ than them; they allowed us to try and strive for Ascension of our own free will, rather than trying to _force_ us to achieve it without letting us focus on our own individual goals. They didn't conceal themselves from us because they want to hoard their power; they kept their existence secret so that we can reach their level on our _own_."

Vala stared almost pityingly at Daniel as he spoke, shaking her head sadly.

"My dear, deceived Daniel Jackson…" she said, a mournful expression in her eyes as she looked at him. "If anybody else had dared to try and reject my message when my followers were with me, you would be dead before I could stop them. If it were anybody else, I would not even attempt to do so. But, as it is you, I have one question for you to consider; if the Altereans are truly the 'better' of the two races, how come they were prepared to allow you, who once walked among them, to suffer the loss of the woman you-"

She never even finished her sentence; his eyes suddenly shifting from a look that was almost anxious with the hope that he'd manage to get through to Vala to an expression that resembled a Goa'uld whose godhood had just been criticised, Daniel raised Vala up as high as his arms would allow and slammed her against the wall, moving one hand to grab her throat as he glared at her.

" _Don't you EVER say her name_!" Daniel roared, his eyes consumed by a rage that they had never possessed in the past. "You don't even deserve to THINK it! Just hearing you even BEGIN to say it makes it sound like DIRT!"

"Uh, Daniel…?" Mitchell began, reaching out as though about to place a hand on his friend's shoulder, only to change his mind when Daniel briefly glared at him in a manner that made it clear that he wasn't in the mood to be interrupted right now.

"Now then, _Vala_ ," Daniel said as he turned back to the thief, almost spitting out her name like a curse as he glared at her, "I'm going to make this simple for you; tell me _when_ you were contacted by Adria, and tell me just how far the Ori influence now extends, or you'll be finding out, _first-hand_ , whether the Ori actually _do_ Ascend their followers at the moment of death."

For a moment, Vala's eyes widened in near-instinctive fear, but then she seemed to calm down as she continued to look at Daniel.

"You wouldn't do that," she stated simply. "It is not in your nature to kill the defenceless."

A harsh, humourless laugh burst out of Daniel's mouth as he stared at the woman above him, even as his eyes briefly flicked down to the gun he'd discarded earlier in a manner that made it clear he was estimating how long it would take him to grab and fire the weapon.

"Funny thing about your knowledge of me, Vala," the former archaeologist continued, his expression grim, with the merest hint of a somewhat disturbing smile, as he looked at her. "Not only is it almost a decade out of date, but you're failing to factor in the fact that, even if you're not _quite_ yourself at the moment, you showed total disregard for my feelings at the funeral of the woman I loved. Quite frankly, you'd be surprised at just how far I might be willing to go if you push me far enough…"

For a moment, as Mitchell looked at Vala, he saw a flicker of fear cross the thief's face, and smiled slightly.

 _Jackpot_.

Even after being apparently brainwashed by the Ori so strongly she seemed to have totally discarded everything they'd ever learned about those assholes, Vala still clearly did _not_ want to die Whether it was because she rather enjoyed the pleasures that having a body offered to her, or because there was still that small part of her that remembered the truth about the Ori no matter how often they'd tried to brainwash her over to their point of view, and didn't want to actually find out first-hand whether or not her new 'gods' actually _would_ Ascend her at the moment of death.

For a moment, there was silence as the three former teammates stared at each other, Daniel's iron gaze almost matched by Mitchell's as Vala shifted slightly uncomfortably before them.

Then, finally, Vala spoke.

"It was after the memorial service…" she replied, her voice low as she stared back at Daniel, as though she was hoping that, if she whispered, the Ori wouldn't hear her 'treachery'. "She came to me and Tomin… she told us of the great crime against the Ori… how we were needed to restore them to their greatness… how they _must_ be allowed to-"

" _Not_ what I want to know right now," Daniel growled, as he slightly tightened the pressure around Vala's throat as he glared at her. "I've only got one other question for you at the moment; _how far have the Ori spread_?"

Once again, there was a momentary silence in the room as Daniel and Mitchell stared at Vala, Mitchell once again finding himself wondering if there was enough of the _real_ Vala left in there for her to tell them what they needed to know, even under all the brainwashing Adria must have put her through to get her to this stage…

When Vala spoke again, it was clear that Daniel's 'success' at getting her to talk was only a partial one; she may have been telling them what they wanted to know, but Vala's tone of voice made it clear that she was only telling them this because she had concluded that they could do nothing about it.

"Across the entire outer 'rim' of planets in your precious 'Tau'ri/Asgard Protected Systems', she said, glaring contemptuously at Daniel. "We have created a new army for ourselves from the heart of your reach to the very furthest worlds you have visited, Doctor Jackson; you _cannot_ defeat us _now_."

As Daniel's face once again assumed that slight smirk that left Mitchell worrying about just how much his friend had changed since Sam's death, the former general was only partly relieved to see that it was still having the 'required' effect on Vala at the same time.

"Funny thing about that," Daniel retorted, as he stared at Vala. "Teal'c used to believe that we could _never_ defeat the Goa'uld… but we did it. The Asgard spent years unable to do anything more to the Replicators than hold them off… and yet we left the Replicators as nothing more than a memory. The Wraith had been alive for centuries… and, right now, they've only got about four hive-ships left out of a fleet of sixty. The Ori may be a bit more… serious… than those guys, but trust me; we can still stop them."

Once again reflecting just how much she had changed since the days when the five of them had served together on SG-1, Vala only laughed at that comment.

"You _fool_ ," she said, staring scathingly at Daniel. "You lack the Sangraal, Merlin is gone, and, with the Ori restored, the power of their followers is greater than ever. What makes you even _think_ that you can stop us _now_?"

"Simple," Daniel replied, as he stared at Vala. "I'll stop you the way we apparently stopped the Aschen."

Before either Mitchell or Vala could reply, Daniel had drawn back his fist and launched a powerful punch at her face, sending her slumping to the ground as he stepped back and turned to look at Mitchell.

"Come on," he said, jerking his head towards the door. "We need to get moving; I have to make a call to the _Odyssey_ and then get to the SGC as soon as possible."

"What?" Mitchell said, looking in confusion between the unconscious Vala and Daniel. "Sorry, but I think I've missed something here; what the _hell_ are you talking about? What have those 'Aschen' suckers got to do with anything; you only met them _once_ , from what I remember from the files!"

Despite the severity of the situation, Daniel had a small smile on his face as he looked back at his old friend.

"The files don't feature _everything_ about our missions, Cam," he said, a grim expression on his face as he walked towards the room's door. "I'll explain when we get there; in the meantime, we need to _move_ as fast as we can if we're going to get to the SGC before Vala can wake up and contact any of her Ori allies. Got me?"

As he and Daniel hurried down the stairs towards the car, Mitchell couldn't help but wonder what the _hell_ his friend could be planning now. The Ori influence clearly wasn't going to be dealt with in a matter of moments, the odds of them managing to gather the forces to defeat a renewed fleet of Ori battlecruisers were slim to none, and as for defeating the Ori themselves…

Without the Sangraal, the odds of that being successful were slim to none, as far as Mitchell could see.

And yet, even with all those facts against them, somehow, as Daniel strapped himself into the driver's seat and turned the key to start the engine, Mitchell couldn't help but feel grateful for what had happened.

For the first time since the death of Samantha Carter, Daniel Jackson actually seemed to be feeling something that _wasn't_ total grief at the loss of the woman he'd loved.

Oh, he'd seemed to enjoy his work as the commander of the SGC, particularly when one of the teams made some great discovery of some kind- after Sam's death, he'd shown a greater interest in even the purely scientific discoveries, as though trying to 'make up' for her absence by being interested in what she would have been interested in- but this was the first time since that terrible day that he actually seemed… almost _enthusiastic_ … about what he was doing.

As far as Mitchell was concerned, whatever else happened to them from here on in, seeing his friend break out of the funk he'd been in for the last decade or so was worth anything.


	6. One Last Throw of the Dice

_Y'know_ … Jack mused to himself as he sat in the office that had once been his for that oh-so-brief year of his life after the initial discovery of the Atlantis Stargate address, _if anybody_ other _than Daniel had asked me to come back here, I would have said 'No'… and I'm beginning to remember_ why _that would have been the case_.  
  
In many ways, the only good thing about his retirement was that he'd no longer had to worry about dealing with the paperwork that came with the job. He'd enjoyed his time as the head of Homeworld Security, of course- if nothing else, he'd managed to limit _some_ of the crap the IOA had put Daniel through after he'd taken command of the SGC- but, quite frankly, now that all he'd retired and all that was behind him, he'd never wanted to even _see_ another form as long as he lived.  
  
He was just grateful that Daniel had apparently kept him listed as still having authorisation to issue orders to the rest of the SGC; as it was, he was attracting a few funny looks from some of the newer recruits, but otherwise everybody was willing to follow his orders.  
  
Sighing once again as he studied the contact before him, Jack casually signed his name on the dotted line and pushed the paper off to one side.  
  
 _Twenty-two down, a good acre of rainforest still to go_ , he mused to himself as he glanced over at the pile of papers off to one side; whatever else you could say about Daniel, he definitely made sure that he was organised. _I wonder how Danny and Mitchell are doing_ …  
  
No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than the two men in question came walking through the door of his temporary office, a resolved expression on Daniel's face as he made for the desk before him.  
  
"Daniel?" Jack asked, looking in confusion at his old friend as he stood up and walked out from behind the desk. "What's-"  
  
" _Later_ ," Daniel said briefly, as he sat down and activated the computer screen before him, simultaneously reaching over to a nearby device that resembled a phone- Jack vaguely recognised it as one of the special communicators they'd installed to keep in touch with ships from planet surfaces shortly before his retirement- and dialled in a number before holding it to his ear.  
  
"Hello, Commander ?" Daniel said, his voice holding that still-unfamiliar edge of authority to it; Jack still found it difficult to accommodate this new commander of the SGC with the member of his original team who'd always shied away from actively being put in charge of anything other than an archaeological mission. "I need you to move the _Odyssey_ into orbit around the sun, as close as you can get without the radiation causing significant damage. I'll be transmitting coordinates and a time to you in a few minutes; once you receive those coordinates, you are to move into position and fire the Asgard particle beam at the time stated in the message."  
  
For a moment, there was silence as Daniel listened to the reply on the other end, Jack only able to stare in confusion at the two new arrivals as Mitchell looked grimly at his old teammate, and then the moment was broken as the former archaeologist nodded briefly at what he'd just heard.  
  
"Thank you," he said simply, before he hung up the phone, turned his computer on, and glanced over at Jack and Mitchell. "Mitchell, you fill Jack in on what we've found out about the Ori; I've got to find an old document on here if we're going to do anything about the situation right now."  
  
"We've actually _got_ a situation now?" Jack asked, looking in confusion at his friend as the former archaeologist positioned himself in front of the computer screen, his fingers poised over the keyboard as he prepared for the hard drive to finish loading up. "Can I get a summary for those of us who _missed_ the last chapter of this whole wacky escapade I suddenly find myself in?"  
  
"Well…" Mitchell said, as he looked uncertainly over at the SGC's commanding officer as he sat in front of his computer, "it's a bit awkward…"  
  
"Make it _simple_ , then!" Jack said impatiently, as he waved a confused hand over at where Daniel was sitting in front of his computer. "What the hell _happened_ to you guys during the meeting with Vala?"  
  
"Long story short? She's with the Ori," Mitchell explained, as he looked grimly over at SG-1's original commander. "Seems like she's been brainwashed by the bloody suckers for the last few years; she's been helping them spread all that crap about Origin ever since those suckers managed to 'wake up' after Daniel triggered the Sangraal-"  
  
"Hold on a minute; she's been _brainwashed_ by them?" Jack retorted, looking sceptically at his old friend. "I thought the Priors were all de-powered; how could she have been brainwashed by people who were just…. well, _people_?"  
  
"Evidently, the Priors weren't as de-powered as we thought they were," Daniel interjected, as he began to rapidly tap keys on the keyboard as he stared at the screen, barely even glancing over at his friends as he scanned his computer for the file he needed at the moment. "I wouldn't be surprised if we learn that the Priors regaining their powers was one of the first things that happened when the Ori began to regain their strength after the initial damage caused by the Sangraal; it's probably one of the more basic powers possessed by the Ori."  
  
"Ah," Jack said, nodding briefly as he looked at his friend. "So… what? You think the Priors were the ones who brainwashed Vala?"  
  
"Actually, it was Adria," Daniel said, as he studied the information on the screen before him, a grim expression on his face as he made a couple of brief changes to whatever he was studying before he looked up at his friends.  
  
"Adria?" Jack said, looking in surprise at his former teammate. "You mean, the hot Ori version of Jesus? What the hell is _she_ doing back here; I thought you said the Sangraal would take _her_ out when it was turned on-"  
  
"I don't _know_ how she's still alive, Jack; if I did, we probably wouldn't be _having_ this conversation and I'd be focusing more on trying to take _her_ out," Daniel retorted, his eyes remaining fixed on the screen as he studied the information before him. "However, that's not important right now; all that _does_ matter is that, if Vala's being honest- and we have no reason to believe that she wasn't- the Ori have already established a foothold across most of the galaxy, and are only going to keep expanding."  
  
"Oh," Jack said, swallowing slightly as he looked at his old friend, who had just stood up from in front of the computer, apparently having finished whatever he was doing for the moment. "So… what's the plan? How do we deal with _this_ problem?"  
  
"Simple enough; just give me a moment…" Daniel said simply, as he reached over to pick up the ship-to-planet 'phone' as it began to ring. "Hello, commander? Where are you now?" A moment's silence as Daniel listened, and then he nodded. "OK then, I'll just transmit the necessary information to you right now; are you ready?"  
  
Reaching over, he tapped a few buttons on the computer screen  
  
"You've got that?" he asked, smiling gratefully as he apparently received the reply he'd been hoping for. "Wait for exactly thirty minutes, and then fire the Asgard weapons at those precise coordinates, and have the weapons programmed at the frequency I told you in the transmission; I'll explain my motives when I have the time, I promise."  
  
After another brief moment to listen to the reply on the other end, Daniel nodded with a grateful smile on his face as he listened to the voice on the other end, even as he pressed his shoulder up against the phone to hold it in place while he activated a timer on his digital watch; Jack wasn't surprised to see that he'd set the timer for twenty minutes.  
  
"Thanks," he said simply, before he put the phone down and looked back up at his former commanding officers. "Well, that's that out of the way; we've got about thirty minutes to wrap up any loose ends, and then we've got what's probably our only chance at stopping this Ori problem."  
  
"Uh… what 'chance' would that be?" Mitchell asked, looking in confusion at his old friend. "What the hell are you actually _planning_ here, Danny?"  
  
"Simple enough, Cameron," Daniel replied as he looked back at his old friend. "We can't stop the Ori in the _present_ , so the only option left is for us to stop them from ever _getting_ that powerful in the first place."  
  
"Excuse me?" Mitchell said, his confusion only growing as he studied the man he'd first met when trying to convince him not to go to Atlantis. "What do you mean?"  
  
"Simple enough," Daniel replied, as he looked back at Mitchell. "By firing the Asgard weapons at the sun, I'm hoping that I might be able to trigger a solar eruption that will allow me to-"  
  
"Hold on; before you go any further, I just want to confirm that I've got what you're thinking down right," Jack said, as he looked incredulously at his old friend. ""You're going to artificially trigger a solar flare? Putting aside the fact that it's risky, how did you even come _up_ with something like that; the solar side of things was… well, not exactly _your_ strong point?"  
  
"Well, strictly speaking, it's not _entirely_ my own idea; I got the initial inspiration after watching an old episode of _Star Trek_ ," Daniel explained, as he looked back at his old friend. "I talked it over with Thor, and he agreed that it might be possible; by using a high-energy particle beam from the Asgard-supplied weapons on board the _Odyssey_ , if the right spot on the surface is targeted, we should be able to trigger a fusion eruption on the Sun that I can travel through via Stargate."  
  
"Uh… excuse me?" Mitchell said, looking in confusion at his friend. "Can we have that in _English_ , please; I got a bit lost at that stuff about you firing at the _Sun_?"  
  
"Basically," Daniel continued, smiling slightly apologetically at Mitchell before he continued speaking, "if the _Odyssey_ fires a powerful enough energy blast from the Asgard weapons systems they gave us after the treaty was finalised, at the energy frequency I transmitted to them, I should be able to cause a solar flare that will allow me to slingshot a wormhole around the sun and send me back in time-"  
  
"Hold on one cotton-pickin' minute here," Jack said, raising a hand to stare incredulously at Daniel. "Are you telling me that you actually _can_ triggera _solar flare_? As in, you've worked out a way that we can _control_ the 'time travel' part of this whacky gate system? By _yourself_? _In a matter of minutes_?"  
  
"Actually, I've been working on the calculations for ten years, and I had a ship or two practice the 'solar flare' part of the equation in other solar systems in case we ever needed to mount a large-scale attack of some kind; it makes a rather effective means of dealing with large vessels, if you time it right," Daniel explained as he looked back up at his old friend. "Trust me, Jack; it may sound like a crazy plan, but I've gone through every possible avenue of experimentation that I can do, and I'm _sure_ that I can pull it off."  
  
"But what's your ability to create a solar flaregot to do with anything?" Mitchell said, looking in confusion at his old friend. "What're you gonna do, send a note back in time telling Woolsey to get off his ass and let you finish the Sangraal? He'll _never_ believe it's _actually_ from the future; he'll think Adria or somebody just made it up to let you get out!"  
  
"Naturally," Daniel stated, as he looked grimly back at Mitchell. "Which is why I'm not aiming for that time period; I'm intending to go for a period a couple of months _after_ those events took place."  
  
As his two former commanders took in the expression on his face, Daniel mentally counted down the seconds between the end of his sentence and the moment when one of them would figure out where his intended destination was and respond to it.  
  
Somehow, it was a subject of personal satisfaction to the formerly disgraced archaeologist that he was correct in assuming that Jack would be the one to guess what he was planning to do first.  
  
"You're aiming for the _conference_?" the ex-head of Homeworld Security said, his eyes wide as he stared at the ex-archaeologist. "Daniel, that's _insane_ ; you don't even know for sure that Carter's death had _anything_ to do with-"  
  
"It's the only place that fits the facts, Jack!" Daniel retorted, as he walked over to face his old friend directly. "Skaara _told_ me that Sam's death 'signified the fall'- which I'm pretty sure meant that it started the events that will result in the Ori coming back _completely_ -, Vala was contacted by Adria after the conference, and the Prior she was talking to mentioned something about the doctors who were assigned to the Priors helping to convert people to Origin- an arrangement that could _only have been made at the conference_ … _DAMNIT_!" he roared, as he suddenly slammed one hand against the wall. "I should have studied the terms of the final treaty when I got back, I don't know _what_ I was thinking…"  
  
"Uh… you couldn't have known there was going to be a problem with the terms?" Mitchell pointed out awkwardly as he looked at his friend. "I mean, you _were_ in a bit of a depressed state-"  
  
"Which is probably exactly what they _wanted_!" Daniel yelled as he spun around to look at his friend. "Don't tell me I shouldn't blame myself for _this_ , Cam; I knew more about the Ori than _anybody_ , and I never even _considered_ the idea that there might be something about the treaty that I should take a look at! I should have done my _job_ ; we wouldn't be _in_ this mess if I had!"  
  
"But you couldn't have _known_ , Daniel," Jack stated, interrupting his friend's enraged rantings as he walked forward to grab Daniel's shoulders and stare at his friend. "You let your grief control your actions, true, but that doesn't make you an idiot; that makes you _human_. You couldn't have known that the Sangraal hadn't done its job, and you were perfectly within your right to be at least a _bit_ upset about everything."  
  
As Jack continued to stare at Daniel, his eyes narrowed grimly as he stared at his friend. "Of course, that doesn't mean I don't think you're being a _bit_ extreme about this solution; surely there's got to be another way to deal with the Ori than doing _this_? Are you sure you're not just… well, letting yourself be motivated even a _bit_ by the fact that-"  
  
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Jack knew he'd made a mistake; Daniel's expression instantly shifted from a mixture of self-reproach, frustration and grief to simple hostility, as he instantly raised his hands to remove Jack's hands from his shoulders as he glared at his old friend.  
  
"Don't even _think_ about suggesting that I've made a mistake because I want to bring Sam back for _myself_ , OK, Jack?" he stated, staring at the other man with an intensity that could have made even the Ori flinch back if it was directed at them. "I spent the whole trip here trying to see if I could think of some other way of dealing with the Ori, and I can't; if Vala's telling the truth- and, as I said, she has no real reason to lie- the Ori have already converted several planets to Origin, and they're probably well on their way to constructing a fleet of battlecruisers. If we don't do _this_ , than Earth- and the galaxy- are _doomed_."  
  
"But you can't be _sure_ ," Jack insisted, as he continued to look directly at the man he'd long regarded as the younger brother he'd never had. "Daniel, I miss her as much as anybody, but she wouldn't _want_ you to rewrite history for her just because you have a _hunch_ …"  
  
"Damnit, Jack, I _know_ I'm right!" Daniel protested, grasping Jack's shoulders as he stared at his friend. "I've spent ten years going over _everything_ I thought provided a possible explanation for Sam's death, and the only thing that I _never_ considered was the possibility of a Prior being involved; I thought that they'd all been depowered with the fall of the Ori! Sam _had_ to have been killed by a Prior; it's the only thing that explains how she died! With her gone, I _didn't_ attend the conference, I _wouldn't_ have been able to point out any 'problems' in the treaty, I _couldn't_ have known if Adria or any Priors were present at the conference-!"  
  
"Sorry; you could _sense_ something like that?" Mitchell interrupted, looking in confusion at his old teammate.  
  
"It's a certain 'talent' that remains with me from my time as a Prior; I can sense the presence of anyone who's been empowered by the Ori," Daniel explained briefly, before he looked back at Jack once more. "Jack, I _know_ it seems like a stretch… but I _know_ I'm right. Sam _was_ killed by a Prior; I _know_ it. I _have_ to try and save her."  
  
As Jack continued to stare sceptically at the younger man- despite the fact that everything Daniel had been through over the last decade had left him looking at least the same age as Jack, if not older- Daniel swallowed, and, looking his friend directly in the eyes, played the one card that he'd always promised himself he'd _never_ use to win an argument with his old friend.  
  
"You didn't believe that I wasn't insane when I was infected with Ma'chello's parasites," he stated, as he stared grimly at Jack. "I'm asking you to believe me now."  
  
For a moment, Jack just stared at his unofficial 'brother', and then he sighed as he looked him directly in the eyes.  
  
"You always swore you'd never bring that up unless it was a matter of life or death," he stated simply.  
  
"Precisely," Daniel nodded. "That should give you _some_ indication of how serious I am about this, right?"  
  
Once again, silence filled the room, Mitchell staying out of the confrontation as the two men just stared at each other, uncertainty still clear on Jack's face as Daniel looked back at him, until, finally, Jack sighed and nodded.  
  
"OK…" he said, as he looked back at his old friend. "I guess… if _some_ version of me was willing to do it for the Aschen… _this_ version of me should be willing to do it for the Ori."  
  
"Uh… explanation, please?" Mitchell asked, looking in confusion over at his old friends. "I get that this is probably minor in the overall scheme of things, but what the Hell do the _Aschen_ have to do with this; Jackson never actually _explained_ that part of this whole mess to me while we were coming here…"  
  
Despite the tense confrontation the two of them had just shared, neither Jack or Daniel could resist a slight smile at Mitchell's question; even after he'd spent almost twelve years as part of the SGC, they could still come up with the occasional surprise for him.  
  
"Oh, about a year before we _actually_ met them- the file you've read is totally accurate in the information it presents to you, by the way- we received a note through the Stargate that came from about ten years into the future- well, the future from _that_ point in time, of course; these days it's from about six years in the past," Daniel explained, the smile still on his face even if it didn't quite reach his eyes. "It told us not to go to P4C-970, written in Jack's handwriting, with his blood on it, and written in a bio-degradable compound that hadn't been invented yet."  
  
"Long story short," Jack explained, taking up the story with an even broader grin, "after our encounter with the Aschen the year after _receiving_ the message- where we learned that they sterilised planets to 'conquer' them without all the usual conquering problems such as losing soldiers in the invasion attempt- we deduced that we'd made an alliance with them in the _original_ history, but the other me discovered the truth and _nobly_ sacrificed my/his existence to save us all in the past."  
  
"Y'know, the rest of us were probably involved in that as well; I don't really see _you_ coming up with this idea by yourself," Daniel retorted, before the smile faded from his face as he looked back at his friends. "Of course, I won't be able to send a note _this_ time around."  
  
"Eh?" Jack asked, looking in confusion at his friend. "It worked before-"  
  
"When the people sending it had access to the IDC for our previous mission in the current history; we don't keep information like that in our database for longer than a year or two," Daniel pointed out. "I can't guarantee that a _note_ would get through the Iris, Jack; if this is going to work…"  
  
He paused, as though trying to think of an alternative, but finally sighed in a resigned manner as he looked back up at his two friends. "I'm going to have to go through the Stargate myself."  
  
" _WHAT_?!" Jack roared, Mitchell only able to stare dumfoundedly at what the man who'd opened the Stargate had just said. "Daniel, are you _INSANE_? That's a _CRAZY_ idea; we can just send a message through-"  
  
"There's no telling how interference from the solar flare could affect a message being transmitted through the wormhole, Jack; sending some _one_ through is the only guarantee we'll get through," Daniel stated grimly, his arms folded as he looked at his old friend. "I can use that portable version of Merlin's device to get through the Iris, and I can also take a couple of anti-Prior weapons- along with a sample or two of the cure for the Prior's plague- to make sure I'm prepared in the event of an attack by the Ori."  
  
"But… you'll never be able to get _back_ ," Jack protested weakly as he looked at his friend. "It'd be a one-way-trip only, Daniel… how could you come _back_ to a reality that you'd… well, erased?"  
  
Daniel shrugged grimly.  
  
"I always knew I wouldn't be coming back afterwards if I went on _this_ particular trip," he said, as he turned to look at his friend. "But then, you've got to take into account; if I succeed, why would I _want_ to come back to a world that would only remind me of how I failed the first time around?"  
  
Despite his own desire to protest at Daniel's words, to try and reassure his friend that he _hadn't_ 'failed' to save Sam, he just hadn't had time to work out what was wrong with her and act accordingly, Jack O'Neill couldn't even try to reassure his friend that his assessment was incorrect.  
  
If nothing else, he'd already spent ten years trying to get through to Daniel about that; he doubted he'd make any further headway in the next few minutes.  
  
Whatever he might have said instead, however, was destined never to be revealed, as the alarms throughout the base suddenly went off.


	7. Ori in the SGC

"What the _hell_?" Mitchell said, looking over at Daniel in confusion as the alarms continued to blare. "What is _that_ all about?"

"I'm not _sure_ …" Daniel muttered, as he looked anxiously over at his old commanding officers, "but, given what we're dealing with here, I get the impression we _may_ not want to know…"

Reaching over to his desk, he picked up the phone and rapidly dialled a number, smiling slightly as the line connected.

"Hey, Walter; I'll assume you know what the alarm's all about?" he asked. For a moment, his face fell as he heard the report on the other end, but then his expression shifted to a grim one as he took in what he'd just been told.

"The inhibitors can't send them back?" he asked, raising an anxious eyebrow. "So, since dispersal probably isn't an option either if they're _that_ compact, can we at least _divert_ them to a decent location for the teams to keep them contained for a time?"

Sighing slightly in relief as he heard the reply he'd clearly been hoping for, Daniel nodded resolutely as he came to a decision. "OK then, dispatch all available security teams to their arrival point, and try and divert the new arrivals onto level seventeen; there's not much there, and the security teams _need_ to take these guys out as fast as possible, or, failing that, keep them busy and away from the 'gate room as long as they can, understand?"

After hearing a response, Daniel nodded, said a brief "Thanks," and then terminated the call while looking up at his friends.

"We appear to have the Ori shock troops coming in," he said grimly.

" _What_?" Jack yelled, looking incredulously at Daniel. "Coming in _here_? But… but the inhibi… _thingies_?"

"Jack, you signed the forms that allowed me to have them installed in the first place; didn't you pay _any_ attention to the fact that the inhibitors can only prevent people from beaming in _instantaneously_ , rather than actually stopping them from getting inside in the first place?" Daniel asked, looking critically at his old friend. "They buy us some time to prepare an offensive against whoever's trying to get into the base, but they don't actually stop them teleporting in; if the shields were _that_ strong we'd have to turn them off every time we wanted to let somebody into the facility in the first place, even if they were just _walking_ in."

"Oh yeah…" Jack said, sighing in frustration as he looked over at Mitchell. "Y'know, if we get out of this with any memory of this reality, I have _got_ to remember to pay attention to what the science stuff does when I'm signing the forms…"

" _Later_ ," Daniel said, looking critically at his friends before he glanced at his watch, shaking his head ruefully as he studied it. "We don't have _time_ to think about stuff like that right now; I've only got about twenty minutes to get to the lab, grab the equipment I need, get to the Stargate, and dial the address that will get me to the other side of the sun and back in time at the _moment_ the flare's triggered."

"So, in other words, nothing we haven't done variations of over the decade or so we all spent on SG-1?" Jack said, grinning broadly at his friend. "You know, there are times when you get on my nerves, but I really _love_ it when we're doing the whole 'overcoming impossible odds' thing."

"Yep," Mitchell said, nodding in agreement at his friends. "The security teams can tackle the Ori; you've got an 'appointment'- for lack of a better term-, and we need to help you get ready for it."

Looking at the two of them as they stood resolutely in front of him, determined to stand by his side even after all that had happened over the last ten years- practically _none_ of them were in anything like the conditions they'd been in when they did this kind of thing on a regular basis, and they'd grown apart despite their efforts to remain in touch- Daniel couldn't help but be grateful to them both.

"Thanks, guys," he said simply as he looked at them all.

It was a woefully inadequate statement, but it was all he could think of to say.

With that, the three of them turned towards the door, Daniel glancing briefly at his watch as he made a quick estimate; assuming they moved rapidly, they should manage to get up the labs on Level Nineteen, grab what he needed, and then get back down to the Stargate in time for somebody to dial the 'gate for a suitable destination on the opposite side of the sun before the solar flare was triggered.

It would be tight, but it _was_ possible.

As the three of them left the door and began to hurry along the corridor, Daniel spared a brief thought for the security teams that had been dispatched to deal with the Ori forces.

He could only hope that, even if he was going to erase these events from history, as few people died in the resulting fight as possible.

* * *

As soon as the order came to them from the control room, the security teams didn't hesitate; grabbing their weapons, the men and women currently sitting around awaiting their call to action instantly prepared for combat, heading directly for the specified location. There hadn't been time to brief any of them on what they could expect to encounter at their destination; all they knew for certain was that something was trying to infiltrate the SGC by teleporting inside, and it was up to them to hold the line.

As they took up their positions on the seventeenth floor, arranged around the location where, according to the control room, the attackers were meant to materialise, two of the older members of the security team, retired from active Stargate duty long ago due to injuries that affected their speed and/or stealth abilities, exchanged brief glances with each other, and smiled slightly.  
  
"Kind of like old times, isn't it?" one of the men said, as he reached over to place a comradely hand on the other man's shoulder; they'd only really become friend over the last few years, whereas some people had known each other since the Program first began, but the bond was there nevertheless.  
  
"As an old friend of ours would say, 'Indeed'," the other man replied, nodding back at his colleague before his face became more solemn. "You heard it too, huh?"  
  
"Oh, you mean that tone of voice that suggests the brass don't think we'll pull this off and this may be the one that screws us all over?" the first man said, a slightly grim expression on his face replacing the almost cheery expression he'd had earlier. "Yeah, I noticed; kind of hard _not_ to…"  
  
" _Hey_ ," the other man interrupted, looking critically at the man before him. "Stay _focused_ , Colonel Lorne. Doctor Jackson may not be a military man, but he knows what he's doing; he would _not_ send us down here on a whim. If he says it's important that we stop these guys?"  
  
Shrugging slightly, the older man smiled grimly as he raised his weapon, the scar on his right hand that stretched up his arm clearly visible as he moved it into position, ignoring the slight twinge that he always felt when moving the arm too fast; it had grown less noticeable over time, but the arm had never been normal since he'd had that unpleasant encounter with a maddened Unas a few years back.  
  
"Then, as far as I'm concerned, we are _going_ to do everything we can to stop them," he said grimly as he looked back at his fellow Colonel. "Do I make myself clear, Colonel Lorne?"  
  
"Crystal, Colonel Feretti," the former Atlantis major said, smiling slightly back at the only other survivor of the original Abydos mission as they took up their positions, before Feretti began to address their colleagues.  
  
"All right then, people!" Feretti yelled out to the other members of the security team, looking resolutely at the group around him. "The enemy will most likely penetrate this level any time now. You have your orders; we may not be able to _stop_ them, but, if worst comes to the worst, we are at the very least to do everything we can to keep them away from the control room and the Stargate at any cost. Understood?"  
  
"Yes, sir!" the soldiers in the team replied, nodding in understanding at Feretti.  
  
The former leader of SG-2 couldn't stop himself from smiling at their dedication to do the job they had been trained to do. They weren't his old team by any means- he still missed the other members of SG-2, dead so long ago in a kamikaze mission that had resulted in the simultaneous destruction of two Wraith ships over in the Pegasus Galaxy- but, right now, he felt that his old friends would have been proud of the resolve shown by these men.  
  
"Your efforts and your dedication have always made me proud to serve with all of you," Feretti continued, looking with an approving smile at his colleagues; if he was ever going to say how he felt about them, Doctor Jackson's grief over the death of Lieutenant-Colonel Carter had taught them all that it was best to say it while you could rather then wait and regret missing your chance. "We've got our orders; let's show whoever these _assholes_ are why you _don't_ mess with the SGC!"  
  
As though that order had been a signal, there was a sudden brief glow of a teleportation device in the centre of the hall, and instantly the familiar armoured soldiers of the Ori were standing in the centre of the security team.  
  
To their credit, none of the men there reflected any of the surprise they must have been feeling at this sudden chain of events; as soon as the light from the teleporter had cleared enough to provide the men with a good view of their opponents, the security team had raised their weapons and begun firing into the moderate-sized group of Ori followers, sending some of them rapidly crashing to the ground as the bullets struck them through the holes in their armour.  
  
Unfortunately, they didn't manage to take down enough of them to make a significant impact on their newly-arrived opponents. Even as the first group of soldiers- the 'attack force' had been sent down in a circle, with an outer 'line' of people protecting the central group with their bodies- went down, the next line of soldiers were raising their staff weapons to fire at the surrounding SGC security teams. Reflexes honed by long practice in fighting staff weapons- even after being relegated to base duty only, some things could just never be forgotten- enabled many of the soldiers to dive out of harm's way in time to escape the initial blasts, but the Ori forces rapidly regained their composure, launching blast after blast at their surrounding adversaries.  
  
" _Damn_!" Lorne muttered grimly as he rolled back behind a nearby open door; it would at least provide some measure of protection against the staff blasts while he reloaded his gun. "And I thought the _Wraith_ were bad; at least those guns were a bit _less_ easy to move about in a fight…"  
  
"Yeah; these things can _definitely_ shift their aim about pretty rapidly…" Feretti mused from where he'd 'hidden' himself behind another door; a few more members of the SGC security team had been forced to hide behind doors, although some of the more desperate were using the bodies of the already-fallen combatants as shields.  
  
 _Ah well_ , Feretti mused to himself as he checked his gun one last time, _if I'm going down, I'll be sure to go down in a blaze of glory_.  
  
If these guys really _were_ the Ori soldiers that they appeared to be- and God, how Feretti _wished_ he could have the opportunity to ask Doctor Jackson how the hell that had happened; if Daniel didn't know why the Ori were back Feretti doubted that anybody would- he knew well that the best he could hope for, in these fighting conditions and with his current numbers, was to go down with a bang.  
  
Glancing over at Lorne, he smiled grimly as he saw that the former Atlantis military second-in-command had clearly come to the same decision as him.  
  
They weren't going to win this, but that didn't mean they were going to make it easy for their adversaries.  
  
Resolutely, Feretti checked his ammunition one last time, and then, a resolved glare in his eyes, swung around the corner to fire at his adversaries, striking at least three soldiers in the head and sending them crashing back down to the ground…  
  
Then he saw one of the figures standing there, and his eyes widened in horror.  
  
" _Vala_?" he yelled in shock as he stared at the former member of SG-1, standing beside a tall, real-looking woman who Feretti vaguely recognised as that 'Adria' chick that had appeared in some of SG-1's reports about the search for Merlin's weapon.  
  
"Hello, Colonel Feretti," Vala replied, her face almost expressionless as she stared back at him. "Fancy seeing you here."  
  
Before Feretti could say anything more, Vala had brought up a staff weapon and fired directly at his chest, sending him flying back just as he heard Lorne scream in rage and defiance…  
  
Then, there was nothing but blackness.

* * *

As soon as he exited the elevator onto Level Nineteen, Daniel found himself making an almost automatic mental note to get the floors sound-proofed, and then made another mental note that he would have to stop making mental notes like that; if he actually _succeeded_ in this mission, he would most likely never be in a position to do anything about it, and if he failed…

Well, he wouldn't be here to do anything about it in a _different_ way; it was just that he'd prefer to not be here for the first reason.  
  
"Great…" Mitchell groaned as he glanced upwards, checking his gun's ammunition for what seemed to Daniel like the fifth time since they'd left his office. "Sounds like things are _already_ getting kinda ugly up there…"  
  
"Hey, do you think I _like_ the fact that I had to send the security teams on an almost-certainly kamikaze mission?" Daniel retorted as he glared over at his former commanding officers while walking impatiently towards the door to the lab. "If there was another way to do this, I'd be doing it! Right now, however-" he briefly paused as he literally _kicked_ the door open before him, marching into the fortunately empty laboratory as friends followed, "we _don't_ have the luxury of finding an alternative!"  
  
After shooting a resolved glare at the other two that effectively ended any argument they might have been about to make, he walked over to a nearby cupboard, opened it, and grabbed a couple of wrist-mounted devices and what looked to Jack like a modified zat gun, along with a small phial tucked away in the back of the cupboard.  
  
"Uh… that's _it_?" Mitchell said, looking in surprise at the phial. "I was kinda expecting that the plague anti-virus part would be a bit… I dunno… harder to find, I guess…"  
  
"What; because we haven't had any _need_ for it since the Sangraal was activated?" Daniel asked, looking over at Mitchell with a slight smirk. "You should know me better than that, Mitchell; I've learned that the past has a tendency to come back and bite you if you don't prepare for _every_ eventuality."  
  
"A most astute statement, my dear Daniel," a voice suddenly said from the door. "It is too bad your advice has led you on this _particular_ path."  
  
All three men instantly stared at each other in shock.  
  
There was no way _she_ could be there _already_ , or they'd practically failed before they'd even had a chance to properly start.  
  
Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Daniel mentally calculated what Vala could see from the door- the way he and the others were standing, she probably couldn't see that they'd already found what they were looking for, so they _might_ still have a chance- before he spoke.  
  
"Miss Vala Mal Doran, I presume?" he stated, trying to prevent the cold hatred he felt for the woman behind him under control; giving into his instincts right now would serve no purpose. "Tell me, how did you get here so quickly?"  
  
"I took a quick side-route while my daughter's followers kept your men occupied," Vala explained, the faint trace of footsteps the only sign that she was even moving; Jack and Mitchell had sensed without needing to be told that turning to confront her now would _not_ be a good idea. "The advantages of spending over a year in this place, really; I found a few little secret routes around the place that I decided to keep to myself for the moment.  
  
"I see," Daniel stated, remaining still as he spoke. "So… why are you here?"  
  
"To give you another chance to see the error of your ways," Vala stated, apparently halting as the sound of her footsteps ceased. "Please, Daniel… I don't _want_ to have to witness the execution of you and your friends; I'm not a _monster_ , whatever you seem to think I am. Just accept the words of the Ori into your hearts, and I can-"  
  
"What; let us live in a world where it's strictly 'follow the Ori or be executed as criminals'?" Jack stated bitterly, clenching the table before him to prevent himself from giving in to the temptation to just punch Vala. "We can't do that, _Vala_ ; for us, it's 'Live Free or Die Hard'."  
  
"Pardon?" Vala stated inquiringly.  
  
"Basically," Daniel stated grimly, as he picked up the weapon lying before him and raised it to about his chest, "it means that, as far as we're concerned, we'd rather _die_ than submit _totally_ to Origin."  
  
Before Vala could reply to that- it was doubtful that any of the men before her would have wanted to hear what she had to say for herself anyway- Daniel had spun around, weapon in hand, and fired at her from practically point-blank range, sending her flying backwards instantly even as Jack and Mitchell spun around to look in shock at what their friend had just done.  
  
"Did you…?" Mitchell began, before stopping himself mid-sentence; he wasn't sure if he _wanted_ to know the answer to that question.  
  
"Kill her?" Daniel said, looking over at Mitchell as he shook his head. "No, she's just stunned; I'm not going to kill someone who's just been _brainwashed_ , no matter how thorough a job the brainwashers have done of it, and I have _really_ been spending too much time with you if that's the best term I can come up with," he concluded, looking critically over at Jack, who just shrugged slightly.  
  
"Hey, what can I say?" he said, grinning at his old friend. "I make an impression on people."  
  
"Yeah, yeah, I get that you guys have a history going back further than I've known either of you; can we just get _moving_ now?" Mitchell said, as he anxiously indicated the door. "Vala may have known a few short-cuts, but the main force can't be _that_ far behind her!"  
  
"Yeah… you're right," Daniel said, glancing briefly at his watch as he spoke; even assuming the elevator went down as fast as it could go (Normally he advised against using them in a crisis, but he doubted the Ori soldiers would be particularly concerned about them given their lack of experience with such things), they would only have about ten minutes to get everything set up in the dialling room for the solar flare.  
  
Calling for it to take place earlier wasn't an option; Daniel was taking a big enough risk with the ship's engines by asking it to get to the sun as fast as it was moving at the moment (Something about increased gravitational pressures when moving too close to a star affected the hyperdrive; Daniel didn't understand the full details, but he knew enough to be sure that the consequences wouldn't be pretty).  
  
"OK," he said, looking over at his friends, "as soon as we get down to the gateroom, we lock the doors and call the teams to provide security for the gateroom; the Tok'ra forcefields should provide us with some extra protection, but I can't guarantee that it will be enough against the kind of firepower we'd be dealing with for the length of time we'd need otherwise."  
  
"So, basically, they'd have to be cannon fodder, huh?" Jack said, sighing slightly as he looked at Daniel. "Isn't there some _other_ sun you could-"  
  
" _No_ , Jack; all the calculations I've carried out were based on _Earth's_ sun," Daniel retorted, glaring at his old commanding officer as the three of them walked out of the lab and headed back towards the elevator. "No other sun in the universe is _exactly_ like our sun, just like no two planets are _exactly_ alike; I wouldn't have time to modify my calculations to accommodate any differences between the two. We either do it here, or we can't do it _anywhere_."  
  
"Check," Jack said, nodding in understanding at the archaeologist, before he froze and tilted his head slightly to one side as he suddenly heard something. "Oh, _crap_ …"  
  
As Daniel and Mitchell listened for a moment, they both cursed as they heard what Jack must have heard.  
  
Footsteps.  
  
Specifically, the metallic-sounding footsteps caused by people in thick armour walking through the corridors of the SGC, and getting ever closer to them.


	8. The Fall of Stargate Command

" _Move_!" Daniel yelled in desperation, clutching the objects in his hands as he raced for the elevator, Mitchell and Jack close behind him. Pressing the button as soon as he reached the elevator, Daniel sighed slightly in relief as the doors opened mere seconds after he'd pushed the button; evidently nobody else was bothering with the elevator at a time like this.

"They're coming!" Mitchell yelled anxiously as he glanced back; the footsteps were far more audible now, and the walks were clearly getting closer.

"Right then," Jack stated grimly, as he turned to look at Daniel and Mitchell. "Retired or not, I'm the senior soldier here, and, under that authority, I'm _ordering_ you two to get down to the gateroom while I hold the line here. Understood?"

" _What_?" Daniel said, looking in shock at the man who'd been there from the moment he first arrived at the SGC. "Jack, are you _nuts_? I'm _not_ going to-"

"Just get _going_ , willya?" Jack yelled, as he shoved Mitchell and Daniel through the lift as he pulled out his gun and turned to look at the corridor before him. "I'll buy you what time I can!"

"Jack-" Daniel protested as he looked desperately at his old friend.

" _Don't_ try and talk me out of it," Jack said grimly, as he briefly checked his gun's ammunition even as he reached inside the lift to push the button for the Gateroom level. "I'll do what I can here; _you_ have a hot astrophysicist- and, by extension, this entire stinkin' _galaxy_ \- to save from these bozos!"

As the doors began to close, cutting off any possible reply Daniel might have made, he and Jack exchanged one last, brief look with each other, a look that would serve as the last confirmation of their mutual resolve to fulfil their designated goals and defeat the Ori with this last desperate gambit, a gambit that Jack knew Daniel would never even admit was also being carried out to give him what he'd wanted for the past decade since that terrible loss…

Then the door closed, the elevator began to descend, and Jack grimly raised his gun to aim at the corridor before him.

As the first Ori soldier came around the corner, Jack raised his weapon and fired directly at the other man's face, rapidly shifting his aim as the first guy was followed by a second one, followed by another change as the third one came around the corner…

And then, much to his shock, a regal-looking woman stepped around the corridor, looked in his direction, and the bullets that he'd just fired in her direction froze in mid-air before they could even make contact.

 _Oh,_ shit Jack thought, as his gun flew out of his hands with a wave of the woman's arm, followed by another wave of the arm that lifted him into the air. _This just reached a whole new level of 'bad news'…_

"Judging by your age, you would be the infamous General Jack O'Neill, I presume?" the woman asked, looking casually at him as she walked towards him.

"Yeah, and you'd be her royal bitchiness, Adria, am I correct?" Jack retorted, glaring at the woman before him. "Gotta say, if you're trying to scare me with the telekinesis? Already seen it when I was dealing with Nirrti, thanks; it's really not as cool the second time-"

"Silence," Adria stated simply, Jack's mouth instantly feeling like something had grabbed his lower jaw and was holding it in position. "Answer my questions, and you shall live; defy me, and you shall die. Do you understand?"

Feeling the sudden pressure on his jaw vanish, Jack nodded briefly in reply; he wanted to collect himself a bit before he started to speak.

"Good," Adria said, smiling briefly at him before her expression became serious once more. "What is Daniel Jackson planning?"

Jack smiled nonchalantly at Adria.

"Tell me, do you _really_ expect me to answer that?" he asked, tilting his head to one side as he looked at his adversary.

Adria blinked in surprise.

"I feel that you do not fully understand the choices available to you right now, General O'Neill," she said, as though he was just a disobedient child who'd spoken back to her parents. "If you do not cooperate with me right now-"

"Oh, I got what you were saying to me earlier regarding what would happen if I didn't answer; I just didn't _care_ about it," Jack clarified, glaring at Adria as he hung in the air before her. "Y'know, just because I _understand_ the consequences of not telling you what you want to know doesn't mean I give a dead rat's fart for them."

Adria's eyes narrowed as she looked at the first leader of SG-1.

"You would choose death over ascension?" she asked, looking critically at the man before her. "Are you a fool?"

"Nope; just not really interested in hanging around for centuries as a glowing ball of energy who can't really _do_ anything to _help_ the people I care about," Jack retorted, trying to ignore the Ori soldiers who were currently walking around behind Adria; if he started thinking too much about what they were up against, he wouldn't get anywhere. "Besides, I know for a fact that your 'Daddies' don't _want_ to Ascend people, Adria- they're not interested in _sharing_ their power, just in _gathering_ it- but even if they _did_ Ascend people, I wouldn't take it; it's not my thing. You can bribe me with immortality as much as you want, but I won't take the carrot; I'd prefer to live fast, die… OK, scratch that; it's not going to happen anyway," he admitted, as his eyes briefly flicked downwards as though attempting to look at his body before he looked back up. "Net result is, you've got nothing to offer me, so you might as well quit while you're 'ahead'. Got me?"

Adria's eyes narrowed, and, for a moment, Jack felt an uncomfortable pressure begin to build behind his eyes… he trained back, trying to ignore it… the pressure increased… his resolve to 'fight' the pain practically grew at the same 'rate'…

Then, a disgusted expression on her face, she flicked her wrist, causing Jack's head to rapidly twist around in a direction it was _never_ intended to turn. In the split second before his head completed its fatal turn, Jack spared a brief prayer for Daniel's success in his current goal- he, better than anybody, knew how much Daniel _needed_ Sam to be alive when all this was over…

Then he heard a sharp crack as his neck finally broke, and it was all over.

* * *

As the two of them descended towards the gateroom, Daniel could only stare at the door in front of him, clutching the weapons he held in his hands as he realised what had just happened.

"He… he sacrificed himself… for _me_ …" he said, as though he couldn't quite believe it. "Why would he _do_ that? We could have got there in time…"  
  
"But he knew that he could buy us some _more_ time; that was what he was after," Mitchell interjected, looking critically at his friend. "Jackson, I know you've got this whole thing about being the one who almost _has_ to sacrifice himself for the rest, but you need to accept that sometimes somebody _else_ is the one who makes that kind of decision, you know?"  
  
"Mitchell," Daniel growled as he turned to glare at his friend, "I've lost too many people already; I am _not_ in the mood to lose any more-"  
  
"If you pull this off, you'll save both O'Neill _and_ Sam, Jackson; isn't that worth _something_ to you?" Mitchell retorted, as he glared at his friend before indicating his friend's watch. "How long have we got now?"  
  
Glancing down at his watch, Daniel swallowed as he looked back at his friend.  
  
"By the time we get to the gateroom?" he replied. "Based on how long it takes us to get through this place at our top speed these days… about ten minutes."  
  
"Right then," Mitchell said, glancing briefly at his watch before looking back at Daniel, "as soon as we get down there, you get into the gateroom, and I'll lock up the control room and dial the address after calling for backup; I presume P2X-555 would be an OK address to use for the current purpose?"  
  
"The planet we were going to during the _first_ solar flare incident?" Daniel said, chuckling slightly at the expression on Mitchell's face. "Even after all this time, you still come across as a bit of a giddy fan, you know that?"  
  
Mitchell shrugged.  
  
"Eh, I read a lot about you guys; some stuff just tends to stick more than the rest, I suppose," he said nonchalantly, as the elevator finally stopped, the doors opening before them as Mitchell indicated the direction to the entrance to the gateroom. "Now then, you get going; I'll see about getting things set up in there and getting the security teams down here, OK?"  
  
"Right," Daniel said, nodding briefly at Mitchell before he began to walk towards the gateroom, only to halt and turn back to look at his friend as a thought occurred to him.  
  
"What about you?" he asked, looking anxiously at his friend. "What will you do after the guards arrive?"  
  
Mitchell shrugged.  
  
"Just do what I can to hold the line, I guess," he said dismissively, before raising his hand to stop Daniel's protests. "Don't try to talk me out of it, Jackson; if you _do_ pull this thing off, it won't matter _where_ I am in the end, eh? If I die trying to buy you time to get through the 'gate…"  
  
He shrugged. "Well, I'm prepared to do it."  
  
For a moment, even with the knowledge of the men who were currently approaching their level with the intent of killing them both, Daniel and Mitchell allowed themselves a moment's silence to shake hands in goodbye, taking advantage of this one last opportunity to convey their respect and friendship for the other after all these years of working side-by-side in humanity's greatest adventure…  
  
After a moment's silence, Mitchell finally spoke.  
  
"Remember us, Jackson," he said, moving his other hand to place it on his friend's shoulder. "And, no matter what you have to do to pull it off, _save_ _her_ …"  
  
Then he smiled slightly as he glared at his old friend. "And, of course, don't forget to give your past self a real kick in the pants for being such an _idiot_ as to nearly miss his chance when you get back there."  
  
Despite the knowledge that, in a matter of minutes, he'd be erasing the last few years of his life as though they'd never even been in the first place, Daniel couldn't help but chuckle slightly at that.  
  
"I'll bear that advice in mind," he said simply.  
  
"Good," Mitchell said, before he pointed at the corridor leading to the entrance to the gateroom. "Now, get going; I'll deal with the dialling system, OK?"  
  
Smiling gratefully at his old friend, Daniel turned and dashed along the corridor towards the gateroom, leaving Mitchell to turn in the opposite direction and head towards the stairs that would take him up to the dialling room.  
  
It was a risk, he knew- hell, if there was any way to get to the dialling room that _didn't_ involve him having to go back _towards_ the Ori attack force that had managed to enter the SGC, he'd be taking it- but, since they needed back-up down here ASAP, to say nothing of needing the Stargate dialled as soon as possible without any questions, he _had_ to go there.  
  
As he dashed up the stairs, his gun in his hand and resolution in his face, Mitchell narrowed his eyes grimly as he turned towards the dialling room to make the call.  
  
 _You thought you could conquer us_? Mitchell thought to himself, as he reached the top of the stairs and turned towards the door that would allow him access to the dialling room. _My Ori friends, you screwed with the wrong planet… Hell, you screwed with the wrong_ man!  
  
 _You killed the woman who was loved by Doctor Daniel Jackson_.  
  
 _And now_ , he chuckled to himself as he entered the door to the dialling room, _you're_ all _going to pay for_ that _little mistake_.  
  
"Sorry, Walter," he said, nodding at the chief master sergeant who had tirelessly helped keep the Stargate dialling for all the years since the program had first gone active, "but I've got a few calls to make, and we're about to have some _very_ unwelcome guests."  
  
"The invaders?" Walter asked, looking apprehensively at Mitchell; even after almost two decades in operation, he was still (Thankfully) unfamiliar with enemies who were powerful enough to actually _enter_ the SGC, and hence lacked Mitchell's long combat experience.  
  
"Yep; they're coming down here," Mitchell said, nodding grimly as he reached for the phone before pausing to look at his old friend. "Walter… you should know, there's a very _real_ chance we could all be about to die down here. If you want to get out before things get that ugly… well, nobody here could hold that against you."  
  
Walter raised a casual eyebrow at the third official commander of SG-1- the commanders they'd received on those occasions where SG-1 had been disbanded or reassigned as a result of Kinsey's attempts to discredit them were generally ignored by the rest of the staff- as he paused for a moment, apparently considering the man's words, before he finally spoke.  
  
"Is there a good reason why Doctor Jackson is currently in the gateroom?" he asked, indicating where Daniel now stood in the room before them, the weapons he'd acquired on the ground as he attached the anti-Prior device and the portable copy of Merlin's device to his wrists.  
  
"Yeah… there is," Mitchell said, nodding in confirmation at his old friend.  
  
"And would I be correct in guessing that the more time he's got in there without our 'guests' getting through to him, the better?" Walter continued.  
  
"Again, the answer's yes," Mitchell replied.  
  
"Then I'm staying," Walter stated grimly as he looked at Mitchell. "Now then, I assume you want the Tok'ra forcefields raised around the gateroom?"  
  
"Please," Mitchell said, nodding in confirmation at his old friend, a small smile on his face as he reached over to pick up the control room radio, quickly activating it and tuning it in to the communication frequency of the security teams.  
  
"This is Brigadier General Cameron Mitchell to all security teams!" he yelled; given the severity of the situation they currently faced, he assumed that nobody would be too picky about the fact that he was officially retired. "Get to the gateroom ASAP; the gateroom _must_ be defended at all costs!"  
  
With that said, recognising that he had no need to wait for a reply- if the team didn't instantly respond to commands from the former members of SG-1, they wouldn't be SGC personnel-, Mitchell terminated the radio connection, tossed a gun over to Walter- if things got ugly, he wanted to be sure that _everybody_ was armed- and then activated the microphone that would allow him to address the man who was about to erase one timeline to create one where they'd been saved.  
  
"OK, Jackson," Mitchell said over the communicator, "we've got the Tok'ra forcefields up around the gateroom, and Walter and I'll make sure those guys don't get inside this place until we're ready to dial the 'gate; you just sit tight and keep an eye on the clock, and we'll take care of things out here, OK?"  
  
" _Yeah_ …" Daniel said, sighing slightly over the communicator as he stood in the middle of the gateroom, looking around himself with a somewhat forlorn expression. " _I'll be waiting_."  
  
Glancing up at a loud electronic-sounding thump at the door to the dialling room, Mitchell cursed silently as he glanced at his watch; they still had around seven minutes left to them before they could dial out if they were going to make it in time for the solar flare, and the Ori's soldiers were _already_ inside the base and coming rapidly towards them.  
  
Then he heard the sound of retaliating gunfire outside the room, and smiled grimly. The SGC's security teams had already managed to respond to his earlier request for aid, and he had no reason not to think that other teams might be showing up; there was no way to be sure exactly _where_ they'd all been when he made the call.  
  
Whatever the situation was outside, the essential details were obvious; the security teams had made it to the gateroom, with reinforcements doubtless already on their way, and they were kicking Ori follower ass.  
  
 _The question is_ , Mitchell mused to himself, as he anxiously checked his jacket for his weapons, _will we be able to hold the line long enough for Jackson to get through_?  
  
In the end, though, there was only one answer he could give to that question.  
  
They _had_ to.  
  
There was no other acceptable outcome.  
  
If they were going to save Earth- hell, if they were going to save the _galaxy_ \- from the Ori, this plan absolutely _had_ to work; they didn't have the time to come up with something else that might work.  
  
As he made sure that his gun was fully loaded one last time, Mitchell just wished that he'd managed to go to Atlantis a few more times before this whole mess had started; even if he wouldn't remember this all in a few moments, he would have liked to have spent a bit more time in that place…

* * *

As he stood inside the gateroom, looking anxiously up at the Stargate before him, Daniel found himself remembering the last time he'd been in this kind of situation, forced to wait in the safety of the gateroom as everyone else died for a world they'd never even know.

Of course, there were some significant-yet-subtle differences between this incident and his first trip through the Quantum Mirror- for one thing, he was actually going to be able to help the people who were dying for him this time around, even if it was only by making sure they'd never be in this situation in the first place- but the essential details were similar.  
  
Once again, it was up to Daniel to save the world by bringing back a story that may not be believed, with only the slenderest of slender hopes available to him that he might actually manage to make the difference he was trying to make…  
  
Except that this time, he _wouldn't_ be going home once the situation was over.  
  
Hell, he wouldn't even _have_ a home when this thing was over; he'd have completely erased the timeline he'd lived in for the last ten years or so, and be stuck in a past that wouldn't be his, with another version of himself _already_ there.  
  
He knew that he was almost certainly dooming himself to death by entropic cascade failure; he somehow doubted that the universe would allow him the 'loophole' of escaping the effects of that particular pain-in-the-neck just because he was only an _older_ version of the Daniel Jackson in this universe rather than being an _alternate_ version…  
  
But, on the other hand, by doing this, he would be saving Sam's life, and giving her and his younger self another chance to have a life together.  
  
And…  
  
He sighed, hating to even admit to himself that he could be so selfish, but at the same time knowing that it was, in many ways, the main reason he was doing something this desperate and dangerous on such a slim possibility.  
  
How could he _not_ risk everything he had right now for the opportunity to see Sam one last time? He couldn't save Sha're under any circumstances- her death had, if anything, ensured the salvation of Abydos by driving him to remain on SG-1 and thus be in a position to convince Oma to ascend them- but if he could just see the only woman he'd loved, if not as much as Sha're, than _more_ than Sha're, one last time…  
  
Then he heard the sound of gunfire from outside the gateroom, and cursed mentally as he turned his attention back to his watch, waiting impatiently for the moment when the Stargate could be activated and he could be on his way; he could afford _no_ distractions right now.  
  
As he stood in the centre of the gateroom, in the same position that he'd stood so many times before when waiting to embark on another mission with SG-1, he tried not to focus too much on the sound of gunfire that was now being waged outside the room, tried not to think too much about the fact that the people he'd known and worked alongside for the last decade were dying right now just to buy _him_ some time to finish this last job…  
  
" _Jackson, stop_ brooding _in there, willya_?" Mitchell's voice suddenly yelled from over the speakers, breaking into the former archaeologist's train of thought as he stood there. " _I thought I made it clear to you when we were coming down here; we're_ all _prepared to die to save Earth, you don't_ always _have to be the one to sacrifice yourself, and in any case, once you pull this off we'll all never have_ been _in this situation in the first place! Stop kicking yourself about this whole thing and just_ focus _on getting through that Stargate when it activates, OK_?"  
  
"Mitchell…" Daniel sighed, as he stared grimly up at the window that was the only surface left in the gateroom that wasn't blank and grey as his two friends anxiously glanced at their watches; they needed to time the dialling process just right so that it activated at the moment of the solar flare, or this whole thing would have been for nothing.  
  
" _I_ don't _wanna hear it, Jackson,_ comprende" Mitchell stated once again, staring grimly at his old friend. " _You've got a job to do in there, and we've got one to do out here; just sit tight, get ready to move out, and we'll take care of things out here, O_ -"  
  
Before Mitchell could finish that last word, a small beeping noise suddenly filled the air from the speakers, much like an alarm clock.  
  
" _Time to start dialling_!" Walter smiled, looking up at Daniel with a small smile on his face. " _Just hold on out there, Dr Jackson; we're going to have this wormhole up in a moment_!"  
  
Daniel couldn't stop a small smile of relief from crossing his lips at that moment. Admittedly, the fact that the fighting outside still seemed to going on was a major concern for him- particularly the fact that, given the firepower the Ori soldiers possessed and how much quieter it was now, the SGC soldiers couldn't last much longer- but at least he knew he was actually going to pull this off.  
  
 _C'mon, c'mon, c'mon_ … he thought to himself as the inner ring of the Stargate began to spin before him, the noise of the 'gate almost managing to drown out the sound of the gunfire around him; all his attention was focused on the sight before him.  
  
" _It's dialling up, Doctor Jackson_!" Walter yelled from over the speakers as the gunfire intensified outside the gateroom. " _Just a few more seconds_ -"  
  
Then there was a brief sound resembling what even Daniel could only describe in his head as a 'damp' explosion over the speaker, and Daniel knew that Walter Harriman had just taken a staff blast directly to the head.  
  
He didn't even bother to look around as Mitchell's roar of rage at the death of their friend was cut off by another, almost identical-sounding 'explosion' mere seconds later; right now, all he could focus on was the spinning Stargate before him, as the chevrons lit up and clamped into place. He barely even registered the sound of the main door to the room falling down onto the ground on his right side as Ori forces cut their way through the final barrier between him and them; if he heard even the slightest sound of a staff weapon being aimed, he'd duck and activate the portable version of Merlin's device until he could get through the Stargate.  
  
"Daniel Jackson?" a voice said from the entranceway. "What are you doing?"  
  
As the almost regal form of Adria walked into the embarkation room, her eyes instantly met Daniel's, and he smiled grimly at the confused expression on her face- simultaneously trying to conceal his own slight surprise at her presence here; even after hearing Vala confirm it, it was still a shock to see her alive after their last meeting resulted in her going through the Supergate with the active Sangraal- as the Stargate finally activated before him.  
  
Turning to look at the active wormhole before him, about to take his first actual trip through the Stargate- rather than just looking at the video communications or seeing it via pictures- Daniel took a deep breath as he mentally reviewed the equipment he was currently carrying to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything.  
  
It was time.  
  
After over a decade of grief…  
  
He _finally_ had a reason to save Sam that he could justify as being for more of a purpose than just to relieve his own internal torment.

He was going to see Sam again…

"So long, Adria," Daniel said simply, as he stared at the self-proclaimed 'saviour' of the Milky Way galaxy, making his contempt for her clear with every word. "Wherever you go when you stop existing… I hope that _you_ go somewhere _very_ painful for what you've done."  
  
With that, he pressed a button on the device attached to his wrist, smiling in satisfaction as Adria's followers aimed their weapons at the location where he'd apparently vanished. As the Ori weapons fire passed straight through his body, Daniel turned around, walked up the ramp- once again grateful that he still interacted with reality enough to walk on solid surfaces when Merlin's device was activated; he wasn't sure _how_ he'd have made it into the Stargate otherwise- and, taking a deep breath, jumped through the event horizon before him…  
  
And, after feeling that momentary rush of being everywhere and nowhere simultaneously, Daniel walked right through the Iris and found himself standing, once again, directly inside the embarkation room, ten years in the past.


	9. When Daniel Met Daniel

As he sat in the dialling room, studying the gate readings before him as he waited for the conference delegates to depart, Master Sergeant Walter Harriman was only partially surprised when the Stargate began to dial; this close to the final negotiations that would decide the fates of those involved in the Ori War, it would only be natural for some of Earth's offworld allies to want to confirm any details about the treaty that was currently being written up.

Turning to study the IDC screen, he waited for a few moments for the familiar beeping noise that would signal that an IDC code had been broadcast from the other end of the wormhole, and was surprised when the wormhole cut out again after only a few seconds. Even if someone had dialled the wormhole without an IDC, he would have expected somebody to at least _try_ and get through the Stargate, but there wasn't even the familiar thump of somebody trying to get through the Stargate and colliding with the other side of the Iris…

It was as though somebody had dialled the Stargate, allowed the wormhole to activate, and then decided that they'd got the wrong number and terminated the connection. It would have reminded Harriman of the first communication they'd managed to receive from Atlantis, except for the fact that they didn't even receive a brief data burst to accompany the opening wormhole; it just activated for a few seconds and shut down once again.

As the wormhole cut out, all Sergeant Harriman could do was enter the event into the SGC computer and wonder if he would ever learn why somebody would dial the Stargate only to not even bother sending anything through it.

* * *

As he glanced up at the control room before him, Daniel allowed himself a slight smile as he took in the sight of the gateroom around him, unmarred by the damage that had been caused over the last ten years as various missions failed to turn out precisely as they'd hoped. They'd fixed the place up after whatever crisis had taken place was over, of course, but it had never been quite the same; the stonework was a bit paler in some parts of the wall, the ramp had been made of a different type of metal than what they'd grown used to…

Small details, of course, but Daniel knew better than anyone that the small details made all the difference; how many times had he found a word in some language or another that could mean totally different things due to just one altered letter or symbol somewhere?  
  
Shaking such thoughts out of his mind- he might have been able to use them to give the younger SGC some hints about what they'd encounter once he'd completed his immediate mission, but they weren't helping him achieve what he was here for- Daniel checked the device still strapped to his arm and nodding in satisfaction. The power supply could be better, but he still had enough to get him to one of the staff offices just a level or two above them; he didn't want to go all the way up until he knew for certain whether he'd arrived at the right time or if he was a day or two early. It would be annoying if he had to hide out around the SGC for a day or so while he waited for the attempt to be made on Sam's life- the earlier he acted the more chance he had of unintentionally rendering his foreknowledge useless and prompt her killers to make a different attempt than the one he remembered- but, if he had to do it, he was certain he could manage.  
  
Hurrying up the stairs- once again grateful beyond words for the fact that the device left him with just enough presence in this dimension to walk on the ground beneath him- Daniel quickly turned around to walk through the door at the top of that immediate flight of stairs- narrowly avoiding walking through a face he vaguely recognised as a member of SG-15; after the program had gone public, so many people had applied for a job there that it had grown hard to keep track of who worked on what team-, heading straight for the nearest office. It was normally Mitchell's, he knew, but he didn't allow himself to be particularly concerned about that; at the moment Mitchell was too busy checking over the security plans for the conference to be spending any time down here.  
  
In other words, it was perfect for what Daniel was here to do; get in, find out what time it was, and then plan his next move from there. Mitchell always left his computer on whenever he was in the base for any length of time, preferring it to be instantly available if he ever needed to check anything in his files; all Daniel needed to do was get in, turn tangible once more, check the date, and then, based on how much time he had, decide where he should go from there.  
  
Taking a deep breath, Daniel walked through the door- trying not to pay too much attention to the fact that he was actually looking at the wooden material of the door from the _inside_ \- and, after making sure that there was nobody else in the room, deactivated the device on his wrist, bringing himself back into sync with the rest of the universe.  
  
As his eyes fell on the computer in the centre of the office- still in its familiar stand-by state, Daniel allowed himself a small smile of relief as he locked the door to make sure he wouldn't be interrupted before walking towards the desk before him. Now all he needed to do was to confirm the date and time of his arrival, see how long he had until the conference, warn Sam of the attack, and then-  
  
As he briefly wiggled the mouse to bring the computer out of its 'stand-by mode', his eyes instantly fell on the clock at the bottom right-hand-corner of the screen, and his eyes widened in horror.  
  
"Oh God…" he whispered, as he reached over to activate the date option on the computer, his eyes widening in horror as his worst fears were confirmed. He'd been hoping that he'd manage to arrive at the SGC maybe a couple of days before the killer, allowing him to hide in some of the less used offices, waiting for an opportunity to talk to his old friends and convince them of his identity, subtly provide Sam with the vaccine for the Prior's plague without attracting too much attention to himself…  
  
But that wasn't an option.  
  
He didn't have a couple of days; he didn't even have a couple of hours.  
  
What he had was something less than twenty minutes.  
  
Quickly Daniel raced over his options in his head. Going directly to Sam's lab and waiting to catch her killer in the act was one option, of course, but it would attract too many questions if he went directly there right now. The device on his arm barely had any power left to keep him hidden for the time that he'd need to get up to her laboratory, and he wasn't ready to answer the questions that would arise if he just waited outside the door for the killer to strike after the power ran out. People might assume he was just a visiting delegate wanting to catch her as she left the room if they weren't paying too much attention, but if he stayed still for too long somebody would be bound to register his more-than-slight resemblance to his past self and this whole thing would be over before he'd accomplished what he'd come here to do; there'd be no way he'd manage to convince _anybody_ of his story before they gave the game away, prompting the killers to try another tactic to get rid of Sam that he _wouldn't_ be prepared for.  
  
No, just waiting outside her office wasn't going to do it right now; he had to try something else.  
  
Fortunately, if his memory of his schedule at this time served him correctly- and since he'd never forgotten _anything_ about this day, it would be hard for it not to be accurate-, there was still one way that he could save Sam without attracting too much attention to himself…  
  
From where he was right now, it was only a couple of doors along the corridor to get to his own office, where his younger self was currently going over the terms of the treaty one last time before the conference began.  
  
If he couldn't convince _himself_ that he was telling the truth, he wouldn't be able to convince anyone.  
  
Checking the power supply on the device once again to make sure he had enough power to get to the room, he turned to face the wall beside him, took a deep breath- this part always kind of freaked him out- and walked through it, closing his eyes to avoid the always-disturbing sight of actually _seeing_ individual grains of stone from the inside as he stepped through the wall. Opening his eyes just long enough to make sure he wasn't in the office yet, he shut his eyes and stepped through the next wall, followed by the next, and the next…  
  
Then, with no more fanfare than his footsteps- audible only to him-, Doctor Daniel Jackson, commander of the Stargate Project for the last ten years, stepped into the room of the man who was about to experience the greatest loss of his life unless he could stop it.

* * *

Sighing dejectedly, Daniel put his papers down on the table before him, reached over to the bottle of water beside him, and took a brief, relaxing drink from the bottle in question. He knew he should keep up his focus on the matter at hand, but for some reason this whole 'treaty' business just kept on making him think of Sam and what she'd just said to him about recommending him to take charge of the SGC when it went public. Maybe it was the fact that at least one or two of the treaties he'd helped prepare for the SGC- the treaty with the Tok'ra and the Tollan, even if the Tollan one hadn't really got them anything apart from Skaara's freedom in the end- had featured Sam as a prominent role in the reason for the treaty even being in a position to be made in the first place.

OK, so the 'treaty' with the Tollan had been more of a 'We won't ask you for help if you don't give us a reason to really wish we needed it' thing more than anything else, but they weren't attacking Earth; given that most of the technologically-advanced civilisations the SGC had encountered over time had more often than not just automatically seen Earth as a threat to their own superiority, Daniel counted that as a treaty.

He was just about to turn back to the papers before him when a hand suddenly grabbed his left arm just as he was putting the water back down. His eyes widening in surprise- how could somebody have entered the room without him hearing the door- Daniel spun around to look at the intruder, and found himself staring at himself.

Wait; it wasn't _quite_ his face he was looking at. The glasses were still there, and his eyes were still the same vibrant blue that Sha're always hoped their child would have inherited, but his hair was long once again, as well as now being flecked with various shades of grey from the roots to the tips. His face was not only more lined, but also thinner, as though he could no longer be entirely concerned about his appearance, an idea that was only reinforced by the stubble around his chin.

"I know this is a shock," the man- _Him_?- said to Daniel as he looked at the archaeologist, "but you have to believe me; right now, Sam's life is not only in the balance, but will be _over_ in the next twenty or so minutes unless you help me save her."

If possible, Daniel's eyes grew even wider at that comment, and they hadn't exactly been small after seeing himself standing beside him anyway.

"Who-?" he began.

"Oh for crying out loud; you don't recognise _yourself_?" the older man groaned as he stared at Daniel. "I mean, I know I've let myself go over the last few years, but who the hell do you _think_ I am? The Easter Bunny? We don't have the _time_ for this; you've got to _move_!"

As he stood up from his desk, looking in confusion at this man who seemed to be himself, Daniel's eyes flicked down to a strange device on his- Daniel still couldn't quite bring himself to think of the man as his 'other self', even if he was telling the truth- wrist, prompting him to look inquiring back at the man before him.

"Oh, this thing?" the man said, tapping it briefly. "Portable version of Merlin's device to shift objects out of phase; it's how I got this far without anyone seeing me, but I don't have enough power to get to the lab."

"The lab?" Daniel repeated, before his eyes widened as he processed what the man had said earlier. "Wait a minute… you mean…"

"Yes," the man stated grimly as he indicated his watch. "Sam is going to be killed by a never-identified assailiant in less than… oh, twenty minutes last time I checked- she's probably only got _fifteen_ minutes left by this point- unless you can get this to her."

Reaching into his pocket, the man tossed a small phial over to Daniel, who caught it easily in one hand, subsequently catching a strange gun-like device that the man also threw towards him in the other.

"The cure to the 'poison' that was used on her," the man explained, as Daniel looked curiously at the phial. "You'll need to get it to her soon, though; it doesn't work when the victim's dead, and she's going to _be_ in that state in less than a quarter of an hour. The weapon is in case her killer's already there; that's the only thing in any arsenal that will allow you to take the killer out before he takes _you_ out."

For a moment, there was silence as Daniel stared at the phial in his right hand and the weapon in his left, a conflicted expression on his face, before he looked back up at the man before him.

"How do I know you're who you say you are?" he asked, staring at the man before him. "I mean, for all I know this could just be nothing more than… some elaborate plot to trick _me_ into killing Sam for you…"

"It's not."

"But how can I _know_ it's not?" Daniel insisted, staring at the man in front of him. "How can I take that kind of risk-?"

"For the person who once told you that your only fault was wanting to save people so badly it tore you up inside when you _couldn't_ save them?" the man retorted.

Daniel was so shocked that he nearly dropped the phial he was holding.

Nobody knew what Sam had said to him as he sat in that tent in Vis Uban, his memory taken from him in the aftermath of his return to his human body, contemplating whether or not to follow them back to Earth to find out who he had once been.

Only he and Sam knew, and they'd both made an unspoken agreement to never tell anyone else about it; he'd always suspected that they'd both been slightly embarrassed about what had been said.

If this man knew about it…

"I can't be _sure_ ," Daniel repeated, as he looked up at the older man with an almost pleading expression, a part of him wanting to be convinced that this man was who he appeared even as a part of him hoped that he'd receive more proof. "How do I know you're not… telepathic or something like that… you could have read my mind for something like that…"

At that, something in the man's attitude seemed to finally snap.

"God _damnit_!" he roared, slamming the palms of his hands onto the desk before him as he glared at Daniel. "You want me to give you _certainty_? Here's a certainty; Sam is going to _die_! She is going to be slumped in her chair, writhing in agony, unable to see or understand what the _hell_ is going on, and you are going to _watch_ it all happen- you are going to _see_ the moment when she stops being the woman you _love_ and becomes just another body- and be _unable to do anything about it_! She'll tell you that she _loves_ you before she finally can't cope with the pain any more, but it won't do you any good because she'll still be _dead_!"

Daniel wasn't sure how many more shocks like this he could take without suffering an early heart attack.

Sam _loved_ him? With her dying breath- her last thought on Earth- she told him that she loved _him_?

"No…" he said, in a weak voice that was almost a whisper as he looked up at his other self- because this man _was_ him from the future; the pain in his voice was too great to be anything but real. "I can't do this… she wouldn't _want_ us to change the past just for her…"

"DON'T YOU _DARE_ JUDGE ME!" the older him roared, grabbing his younger self's shoulders and staring him directing in the eyes. "You don't know what it's been _like_ for me since that day! I have lived my _entire_ life for the last _ten years_ , wondering if there was _something_ I could have done to change things today, and you are _not_ going to screw this up because you can't be _sure_!If you do nothing, every time you close your eyes at night you'll see her there, her whole body in pain from a source she doesn't understand, granting you your most impossible dream just before you find yourself in your worst nightmare! The only reason- the _only_ reason- you never told her was because you were worried you'd lose her if she didn't feel the same way; if you don't do this now, you're going to learn you had nothing to worry about but lose her _anyway_! I have lived something close to an emotional _Hell_ since that day happened, and if you don't move _now_ , you're going to be worst off than I am; at least I didn't _know_ what I could have done differently. But _you'll_ know, and how much worse will it be for you, 'Doctor' Daniel Jackson, to know that you _could_ have saved the one woman you've ever loved _more_ than Sha're, and didn't because you _weren't sure I was telling the truth_?! _Goddamnit_ , when you feel like your heart's been carved out of your chest and you've watched it stop beating, _how will you cope with the fact that you were the one holding the knife_?!"

Whether the older Daniel would have had anything further to say at that point would never be revealed; at that moment, the younger Daniel, his face so pale that one would never have believed he was an archaeologist who specialised in ancient Egypt, freed himself from the grasp of his older self, his eyes wide in horror as he looked at the phial in his hands.

After taking one last look up at his older self, he came to a decision.

" _SAM_!" he screamed, turning for the door and practically diving through it, leaving his older self to wait in his office.


	10. Saving Colonel Carter

As she studied the schematics spread out before her, Sam sighed slightly in frustration as she scribbled out some of the early details of her calculations and rewrote them to allow for the device's increasingly compact structure; she needed a wider dispersal field if this thing was going to shift the person who was wearing it _totally_ out of phase, rather than just shifting one arm.

It was like every time she tried to get somewhere with the plans, something cropped up that she hadn't remembered about them earlier and she had to go back and alter what she'd done already to compensate for it. If she hadn't known the Ascended were forbidden to interfere like that, she might have suspected that one of them were fiddling with her calculations or her memories or both to prevent her from working out how to use one of the most fascinating pieces of Ancient technology they'd discovered since first going through the Stargate.

She was making _some_ progress, of course, but it was still some of the slowest she'd made since she'd first started working on reverse-engineering some of the technology they'd acquired off-world. She knew that her work was probably as accurate as it was ever going to get, and that she'd done everything she could possibly do to try and get the answers she was after, but she just couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else she could be doing here…

 _Or should that be, there's some_ one _else you'd rather be 'doing'_ , a voice commented in the back of her mind, sounding almost disturbingly like Vala in the tone of the thought.

She shook it off; regardless of how pleasant a thought it might have been, she couldn't allow herself to become distracted with daydreams. It was a nice thought to have, true, but the fact remained that Daniel didn't think of her like that and she should just accept it.

After all, with Vala making no secret of the fact that she was interested in him in that sense of the word, to say nothing of the fact that he'd worked with her for almost a decade and never given any sign that he'd noticed her that way so far, why would he start now?

As if it hadn't been frustrating enough for her that, the last time they'd spoken, General O'Neill had made it clear that he just wasn't interested in a relationship with her in that sense of the word- he just didn't feel emotionally _capable_ of opening up to somebody after what had happened with Charlie, no matter how much time had passed since then-, Sam might have been tempted to try and see if there was some truth to the rumours about them that were constantly discussed around the base and given a relationship with him a chance just to try and take her mind off Daniel. She doubted it would have worked, of course- Jack, for all that he and Daniel were equally courageous, lacked that true selflessness about him that had always drawn her to Daniel even when he was married-, but with Vala making no secret of her attraction to Daniel, and Sam unable to summon the nerve to risk her friendship with him on something that might not be reciprocated, could only watch.

Groaning in frustration at her life- why did things always have to be so complicated?- Sam turned back to the work before her, trying to get her mind back on track to solving this current issue, when she heard a faint sound coming from opposite her desk. Looking up in the direction of the sound, Sam's eyes automatically widened in horror and shock as she took in the sight before her; a Prior, holding his staff as he stared resolutely at her, his eyes seeming to glow in the light coming from his staff.

 _But… but that's_ impossible! Sam protested, as she took in the glow from the staff he held clasped in one hand. _How could his staff do_ anything _; the Priors were all rendered powerless after the Ori vanished_! _This_ can't _be real_!

Unfortunately, the evidence to the contrary now standing in front of her seemed to be distinctly unconcerned about whether or not his existence was possible.

"By the will of the Ori," the Prior said as he stared resolutely at her, Sam so stunned by his presence that she could barely even think of moving or come up with a plan to deal with this new threat, "you shall-"

Before the sentence was even out of his mouth, the door to her lab suddenly flew open and Daniel crashed through the door, a weapon of some kind in one hand and a phial containing some unidentified clear liquid in the other.

" _SAM_!" he yelled, raising the hand holding the phial above his head. " _Catch_!"

"Wha-" Sam began, looking in confusion at her friend even as she instinctively grabbed the object he'd just thrown at her in the few moments before the Prior spun around to glare at the new arrival.

"You may not defy the will of the Ori!" the Prior yelled, thrusting his staff in Daniel's direction, only for Daniel to raise his other hand and… absorb the energy thrown at him?

"Whoa…" Daniel said, staring at the weapon in his hand in awe. "That _was_ something…"

" _Impossible_!" the Prior yelled, staring incredulously at the weapon in the archaeologist's hands. " _Nothing_ can defy the will of the Ori!"

"Unfortunately, that's not entirely accurate," Daniel retorted, raising the strange device as he stared at his adversary. "Now then, could you give up, or do we have to do this the more unpleasant way?"

" _Never_!" the Prior roared, swinging his staff in Daniel's direction, the archaeologist only just managing to dodge the initial physical attack. Before he could get back to his feet, however, the Prior had lashed out at Daniel with the other end of the staff, tripping the archaeologist even as he turned to aim the other end at Sam. It glowed briefly, and Sam suddenly felt as though she'd been struck by a short but heavy breeze of some kind.

* * *

"NO!" Daniel roared, his face suddenly twisted in fear as he lashed out with a well-aimed kick that struck the Prior in a place that would hurt anything male.

If his future self had been telling the truth about what had killed Sam- and so far his information had been right on the money-, then Daniel was prepared to bet everything he had that she'd just been hit with whatever it was that would end up killing her.  
  
As the Prior doubled over, Daniel hurried over to Sam, noting with relief that the phial his future self had given him to give to her was still intact; if the Prior had really 'poisoned' Sam somehow- although he was starting to suspect that she'd actually been infected with the Prior's plague and his future self had just described it as poison to avoid too many more questions-, that phial remained the only way he had to cure her.  
  
"Daniel…" Sam gasped, looking up at him in confusion as she held a hand to her head. "Wh… what's happening… I feel… I feel _strange_ …"  
  
Daniel's eyes widened in horror; if she was feeling strange, there was a definite possibility that the plague- assuming his theory was correct- had already taken effect, which meant he might rapidly be running out of time before she actually… actually…  
  
 _NO!_ Daniel mentally berated himself.  
  
Whether his future self was the genuine article or was just an elaborate impostor with unknown motives, he'd been right about one thing; Daniel would never be able to live with himself if Sam died when he could have _done_ something about it.  
  
"Drink the phial, Sam!" he yelled at her, indicating the phial in her hand as she looked up at him in confusion. "If you've ever trusted me about _anything_ before today, _drink it_!"  
  
Before he could see whether she was going to do it- he still had the more immediate concern of her attacker to deal with- Daniel spun around and charged at the Prior before him once again, refusing to allow his adversary time to re-orientate himself; if the Prior managed to use his staff again, Daniel didn't want to rely uniquely on the weapon his future self had provided him with, no matter how effective it appeared.  
  
Grabbing the Prior's staff from its hand- they may be able to use their powers without it, but Daniel's own time as a Prior had reaffirmed for him that their powers were stronger with the staff than without it-, Daniel hurled it off to one side and punched the Prior in the face, sending his enemy staggering backwards before he could use his powers.  
  
Desperate to keep his opponent from having the time to use his powers, Daniel continued to punch away at the Prior, striking him in the face and chest with several punches, sending him staggering back; clearly, either the Ori didn't select their Priors for their hand-to-hand combat skills, or they just became so reliant on their powers that they weren't very good at dealing with an opponent who wouldn't give them the chance to use those powers.  
  
As Sam struggled to open the phial Daniel had given her- the top seemed to have become slightly stuck, and she could feel her fingers becoming numb as her vision began to blur-, Daniel desperately grappled with the Prior in front of him, straining desperately to try and overcome his enemy.  
  
"You _cannot_ defy the will of the Ori!" the Prior yelled at Daniel, the archaeologist straining against his adversary even as the Prior flexed his fingers, causing a slight tightening around Daniel's throat. "Their will is _supreme_!"  
  
At that moment, the stopper popped off the phial.  
  
As soon as he heard the phial opening behind him, new strength seemed to flood through Daniel's battered body. Before the Prior could realise what was happening, Daniel had rammed his knee up between the Prior's legs, striking his already-painful privates once again, breaking his grip on the archaeologist. As Sam swallowed the phial's contents, Daniel raised the weapon his future self had given him once again. Pointing it at the Prior before him, Daniel pressed the weapon's activation button, a strange burst of blue energy jumped from the weapon to envelop the Prior, and suddenly the Prior just…  
  
Vanished.  
  
Daniel couldn't think of a better way to describe it; one minute the Prior was there, and the next he wasn't. The part of Daniel that wasn't shocked at what had just taken place vaguely acknowledged that it must have disintegrated his adversary down to their respective molecules while simultaneously serving as a means of absorbing the mental energy the Prior would otherwise use against him in attacks- hence why he hadn't been affected by the Prior's initial assault- but the rest of him was too busy being concerned about Sam to care about that.  
  
He'd worry about the fact that he'd just killed the only other person who might have been able to give him some answers about what was going on here later; right now, he had to make sure that he'd done what he'd come here to do, or he'd never forgive himself (Literally; he somehow doubted his future self would be very happy with him having failed to save Sam _twice_ after everything he must have gone through to come back here).  
  
"Sam?" he said, sticking the weapon back in his pocket as he turned to look anxiously at his long-time teammate, unable to stop himself from sighing in relief as he saw her breathing normally, the phial in her hand now empty. "Are… are you OK?"  
  
Looking up at him as though she'd only just remembered that she wasn't alone, Sam swallowed slightly, staring between Daniel and the phial in her hand as though she wasn't sure what to do.  
  
With the knowledge of how close he could have come to losing her- with the knowledge that he _would_ have lost her if it hadn't been for his other self-, Daniel found the sight of her confusion about what had just taken place the most joyous thing he'd ever seen. She could have died, and yet here she was, still asking questions and seeking answers as though nothing had happened.  
  
"I… I felt… _something_ ," Sam said at last, looking uncertainly up at Daniel. "It… it felt like parts of my body were… just _stopping_ … I could barely feel anything… I couldn't even really see… and then I drank the phial… and…"  
  
For a moment she paused, as though uncertain whether she should say what she was about to say, and then turned to look resolutely at Daniel.  
  
"How did you _know_ that that Prior was about to attack me?" she asked, looking in confusion at the archaeologist as she indicated the now-empty phial and the weapon Daniel still clutched in his hand. "And where did you get these? It's not that I'm not grateful you save my life or anything, but it just seems a bit… well… odd- for lack of a better term- that you'd _know_ I'd need help."  
  
"Odd?" Daniel repeated, chuckling slightly as he looked at Sam, before his expression became more serious. "Trust me; you don't know just _how_ 'odd' this situation is. You'd better get General Landry and the rest of SG-1 together as soon as you can; trust me, you're _all_ going to want to know the full details of how I knew about this attack, but I'm equally certain you won't believe it unless you see it for yourself."  
  
Clearing his throat, he stood up and indicated the door. "I'll meet you in the briefing room whenever you're all ready; call me when you've managed to get in contact with the others."

* * *

"Uh… right," Sam said, blinking uncertainly- she wasn't entirely used to Daniel taking command of a situation like this; he normally took point in archaeological missions rather than in this kind of situation-, before she reached over to pick up her office phone.

She had no real idea what was up with Daniel, but she recognised the resolute expression on his face easily enough; he had something to share with her, but he wasn't going to share it until he was speaking to everybody to avoid having to repeat himself.  
  
Sam had to admit, putting aside her initial dislike of the fact that there was something Daniel didn't want her to know by reminding herself that he _had_ promised to tell her later, and dialled General Landry's number.  
  
The sooner she knew how her best friend had apparently had advanced knowledge that she was about to be killed, the happier she'd be.


	11. Present Meets Future

For ease of clarification, the Daniel Jackson of the future will be referred to as 'Doctor Jackson', while the Daniel of the present will be referred to simply as 'Daniel'  
As Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell entered the main briefing room of the SGC, having been called back by General Landry for reasons that , he was surprised to find that only Daniel Jackson was absent; the archaeologist having been the one to arrange most of the important details for the current conference, Mitchell would have thought that he'd want to personally attend anything that could have an impact on its eventual outcome, but his seat was still empty.

"Ah, Colonel Mitchell; take a seat," General Landry said, indicating the chair to his immediate left as he looked inquiringly up at the new arrival. "I assume you haven't any idea why Doctor Jackson would call this meeting either?"

Mitchell shook his head. "Nope, not a clue; just got a call from you saying that Sam here had told you that Jackson wanted a meeting and came down as soon as I could," he replied, as he sat down in his chair before looking curiously over at Sam. "Don't suppose you've got any ideas what it's about, do you?"

Sam shook her head. "Some, but nothing I can be sure about; it's all been… well, rather hectic recently," she replied, as she looked apologetically at Landry. "I tried to get answers out of him at the time- I'm still a bit confused about what he actually has to do with what just happened, really-, but he just told me that I wouldn't believe him unless I saw it for myself and asked me to call this meeting."

"We wouldn't believe him?" Vala said, looking in surprise at Sam. "What could Daniel have to say to us that we _wouldn't_ believe; that he ended up ascending again and was just waiting for the right opportunity to let us know about it?"

Before Sam could reply to that, the door opened and Daniel walked in, a slightly awkward expression on his face as he looked at his teammates.

"Sorry I'm late," smiling slightly sheepishly at them all. "He didn't want to be seen by anybody yet, so we had to take the long way around to get here."

"'He'?" Vala repeated, looking in confusion at Daniel. "What 'he' are you talking about; did you bring a friend in for a visit or-?"

Then a figure standing behind the door stepped into full view, and the entire room gasped in surprise at the sight before them. The figure may have thinner than the man they all knew, with greying hair, slightly stained clothes that looked like they hadn't been changed in a week, and glasses that seemed so loose on his face that they were about to fall off the end of his nose at any moment, but it was still clearly, unmistakeably, an older, slightly more withered version of Doctor Daniel Jackson, standing beside the Doctor Daniel Jackson they all knew, staring at Samantha Carter as the faint glimmer of tears shone in his eyes behind his glasses.

"Oh God…" the older Daniel whispered, as he slowly walked towards her, one hand reaching out as he approached. The extended hand was visibly shaking, a part of him unsure whether he really wanted to do this or would prefer to leave himself with uncertainty, but the rest of him clearly had to know that what he was seeing was real. Vala nearly opened her mouth as though she was about to say something, but Teal'c placed a hand on her shoulder to stop her, his glare all she needed to make it clear that this was an occasion where her best policy was to say nothing.

As his hand gently reached out to stroke Sam's chin with one finger, his touch so gentle that it was as though she was an ornament he was terrified would break, something in Doctor Jackson's body language finally snapped.

"You're alive…" he whispered, as he stared at her. "It's fifteen minutes later and you're alive… I did it… you're _alive_ …"

Before Sam could process what she'd just heard, Doctor Jackson had bent down on his knees, wrapped his arms around her as she sat bemusedly in her chair, and was softly crying into her shoulder.

"I'm sorry…" he whispered, his voice only just audible over the tears that were now streaming from his eyes as he pressed his face into her shoulder. "I'm so… _so_ sorry… I couldn't save you… I didn't know what to do… I couldn't help you… I just _watched_ you die… I lost you…"

Awkwardly, unused to having to comfort a grieving future version of one of her closest friends- particularly when he was clearly grieving about _her_ death; how do you cope with the news that you should have been dead a quarter of an hour ago?-, Sam raised her own arms to uncertainly hug Doctor Jackson herself.

"It's OK… Daniel," she said soothingly, as she raised one hand to softly stroke his hair as he cried into her shoulder. "It's OK… I'm here… I'm here…"

* * *

For a moment, the rest of SG-1 could only watch the unexpected sight before them, none of them willing to break the clearly emotional moment between Sam and Doctor Jackson, none of them entirely certain what they could say to a man who'd apparently come back in _time_ to save one of their own, until Vala finally broke the silence.

"What?" she said, looking at the future Daniel with a slightly teasing smile on her face. "Don't we all get a hug too?"  
  
For a moment, Doctor Jackson paused, his body suddenly becoming still as though he was thinking about something, and then he stood up and turned to look grimly at Vala.  
  
"Ah, Vala; pleasure to see you again," he said, smiling slightly at her as he walked over to stand beside her, his tone and body language making it clear that he was about to do something he'd been wanting to do for a while, but was trying to act nonchalant about it. "Firstly, I would like to assure you that my next action is in no way motivated by what you did before I came back through the Stargate; I freely acknowledge that you'd been brainwashed and had no control over your actions when you led the Ori _into the SGC itself_."  
  
Vala blinked in shock, the rest of the team only able to stare incredulously at the almost light-hearted manner in which Doctor Jackson had revealed such a crucial piece of information about the future.  
  
Whenever they'd gone back in time in the past, they'd never dared to say anything for fear of changing their history; for _Daniel_ to be so casual about the possible consequences of his words and actions…  
  
Either he'd changed so much that he didn't care about what he might be doing to his version of history, or something so horrific had happened to his world by that point in time that he'd had no other option available to him if he wanted to save the world  
  
"However," Doctor Jackson continued, staring resolutely at Vala, apparently oblivious to the reaction he'd caused, "this _is_ motivated by my blaming you for your actions at a more removed time."  
  
With that, he punched Vala once in the face, sending her flying from the chair she'd been sitting in and crashing to the ground.  
  
" _That_ was for hitting on me at the _goddamned memorial service_!" Doctor Jackson roared, pointing an accusing finger at Vala as she looked up at him in shock, cradling the bruise on her cheek. "I mean, _god_ , do you have absolutely _no_ respect for the dead? I get that you were drunk at the time, but that still doesn't excuse _everything_ you did; you _knew_ how much that whole experience had shaken me- you _knew_ how it had affected me-, and you just didn't seem to _care_! God, what is _wrong_ with you?"  
  
Once again, there was a momentary silence in the briefing room from all the participants, Doctor Jackson glaring at Vala as the rest of SG-1 looked uncertainly amongst themselves, until Mitchell finally broke the silence.  
  
"So," he said, looking over at Daniel, "I take it that this guy _is_ who he appears to be; namely, an older you?"  
  
"Uh… yeah," Daniel admitted, nodding slightly dazedly as his future self, as though only just registering where he was once again, turned around and sat down in a chair at the opposite end of the table from General Landry, leaving Vala to stagger to her feet herself; she didn't look particularly happy with what Doctor Jack.  
  
"To be more precise," Daniel continued, ignoring Vala for the moment- he'd try and apologise to her for what his future self had done later, although if he had correctly guessed his future self's motives for the punch Daniel had to admit that he had little for her-, "he's me from about…"  
  
He paused and glanced over at his future self for confirmation. "You said you were from about ten years in our future, right?"  
  
"Precisely," Doctor Jackson said, nodding in confirmation as he glanced over at the rest of the team, a slight smile on his face as he studied them. "And I have to admit, it's good to see you all again; you definitely look _far_ better than you did when I left."  
  
"Uh… right," Mitchell said, nodding uncertainly at Doctor Jackson before he looked at the present version of his friend. "So… what's he actually doing back here?"  
  
"Mitchell…" Doctor Jackson sighed, as he turned to look back at Sam, a slightly wistful expression on his face as he looked at her. "You're not stupid; after what I just said to Sam, can't you _guess_ why I came back in the first place?"  
  
Though she knew that it wasn't a very mature response, Sam felt a slight thrill at the knowledge that she was the reason that any version of Daniel would take so great a gambit as to travel back in time through the Stargate…  
  
Then she realised the full implications of what he'd just said- she'd been more concerned about comforting him to fully realise what he needed comforting about in the first place-, and looked at him in shock.  
  
"I… I died?" she said, looking somewhat dazedly at Doctor Jackson. "But…"  
  
Doctor Jackson raised a hand to halt her.  
  
"Before you say anything," he said, looking back at the astrophysicist, "I _know_ that coming back her just for you was a stupid, selfish, irresponsible thing to do and that I shouldn't have done it. I was fully aware of that. That's why, for ten years, I did nothing about your death but try to cope with it, making my way through my life, trying to find some way to cope even as I knew I never could, doing whatever I could to try and make myself forget that I'd failed you when you needed me the most…"  
  
He paused for a moment, looking at her as though to make sure she'd understood what he'd just said, and then sighed. "And then, I learned something that meant I _had_ to come back and save you."  
  
"What?" Landry asked, leaning forward to look critically at the future version of the head of his archaeology department. "What did you find out?"  
  
"The Ori are still active," Doctor Jackson said simply.  
  
Daniel blinked in shock.  
  
"What?" he said, staring in confusion at his other self. "What do you mean, they're _active_?"  
  
"What I _mean_ is that they survived the activation of the Sangraal, for reasons I don't want to go into now- it's a long story and it's not relevant to the matter at hand-, but their powers were significantly diminished and their link to their followers was cut off," Doctor Jackson explained as he looked at his younger self. "I'm not sure how some Priors are still able to use their powers despite that problem, but that's not important right now; what _is_ important is that I'm certain that whoever's behind all this is up to something at the conference, and I need to be there."  
  
"Sorry; you _need_ to be there?" Landry repeated, leaning forward to look critically at the older version of the head of his archaeology department. "Doctor Jackson, while I don't deny that you've done a great deal for us over the years, the last time I checked, _I_ was the head of this organisation; you can hardly just come in here and expect to take over everything solely because you claim you're from the future."  
  
For a moment, Doctor Jackson looked like he was going to object to Landry's statement, but then he stopped himself, smiling slightly apologetically at the general.  
  
"You're right; sorry about that," he said, shaking his head with a slight smile on his face. "It's just… well, I've spent the last ten years or so being the one _giving_ the orders in here; it's kind of hard to get out of the habit that fast."  
  
Daniel's eyes widened.  
  
"You- we- I- sorry, I have no idea how to phrase this- were in _charge_ of the SGC back in your time?" he said, looking incredulously at his other self.  
  
Doctor Jackson shrugged. "Well, they needed a non-military commander to calm things down after the Stargate program went public, and they felt that I was the best candidate; who was I to argue?" he said, shrugging casually at his younger self, a slight smile on his face at the memory. Only the slightly pained expression in his eyes showed that, as far as he'd been concerned, it had been far from a happy event; if he'd had to choose between being in charge of the SGC and having Sam back, Daniel was confident that the man would have taken Sam back in a heartbeat.  
  
After a moment's awkward silence, with none of SG-1 or General Landry certain what to say to Doctor Jackson, the man in question shrugged casually and looked back at Landry. "Anyway, enough about _my_ future; let's focus on this one, OK? General Landry, requesting permission to accompany you all to the conference?"  
  
"Permission granted," Landry confirmed, nodding briefly back at Doctor Jackson before he indicated the man's overall appearance. "Just so long as you disguise yourself somehow; you've changed a lot, true, but at the moment you're still too obviously just an older Doctor Jackson."  
  
"Already thought of that," Doctor Jackson replied, patting a pocket slightly as he looked at his predecessor. "Just give me a room where I can get ready and I'll be with you in… oh, an hour or so?"  
  
"Perfect," Landry said, nodding back at Doctor Jackson. "I've got some business to straighten out with some of the IOA representatives before the conference; feel free to use my office if you want. So, unless there's anything else you want to tell us…?"  
  
For a moment, Doctor Jackson stood in silent thought, and then shook his head.  
  
"No," he said finally. "There's nothing else I can think of that has any significant impact on the situation."  
  
"Very well," Landry said, looking around at the rest of SG-1. "You're all dismissed. Doctor Jackson- future Doctor Jackson-, feel free to use my office to get ready; the rest of you, be in the gateroom in an hour."  
  
"Thanks," Doctor Jackson said, before he turned around and walked out of the briefing room, Landry close behind, leaving the five members of SG-1 to sit around the table and reflect on what had taken place.

* * *

Finally, Mitchell broke the silence once again.

"So," he said, looking over at Daniel, "you've met… you, huh? How's that feel?"  
  
"Honestly?" Daniel asked, looking back at his friend before he sighed. "It's… well, 'weird' is an understatement; I'm not sure whether it's more or _less_ weird that he's my _future_ self rather than an alternateone."  
  
"On the topic of alternate realities, will this Daniel Jackson suffer from entropic cascade failure?" Teal'c inquired, looking over at Sam.  
  
After a moment's pause for reflection, Sam shook her head.  
  
"No… I don't _think_ he will, anyway," she explained as she looked at Daniel. "Essentially, the entropic cascade failure was caused by two different versions of fundamentally similar matter existing in the same place; in this case, however, it's two different versions of the _same_ matter. It's rather like that incident with the black hole and our multiple other selves, really; the two of… well, you… are so much closer to being each other than my alternate self was to being me that the universe almost doesn't register the issue."  
  
"Ah," Daniel said, nodding in understanding. "I… _think_ I get what you mean…"  
  
"So," Mitchell said, clasping his hands together and looking around at his team, "now that we've got that out of the way, who wants to be the one who talks to Doctor Jackson Senior about the full details of how and why he came back here? I think-"  
  
"I'll do it," Sam said, standing up and looking over at Mitchell. "From what he said, he came back here for _me_ mainly; I'd…"  
  
She paused for a moment, glancing briefly over at Daniel as though uncertain how to phrase what she was about to say, before she turned to look back at Mitchell. "Well, I'd like to thank him."  
  
Mitchell nodded.  
  
"Sure, go ahead," he said, waving her on towards the door. "See you when we see you."  
  
Nodding her thanks, Sam walked out of the briefing room and headed down the corridor towards Landry's office, her mind already racing as she tried not to look too much at Daniel as she left.  
  
She acknowledged that she might have been reading too much into the actions of his future self, but judging by how the future Daniel had just reacted upon seeing her, she had a sneaking suspicion that her supposedly unrequited feelings for him weren't _quite_ as unrequited as she'd always believed them to be; he'd been _far_ too shaken to see her again than if he'd just seen a friend after losing them.  
  
The question was, was she correct about the reasoning behind his actions, or was she just seeing what she _wanted_ to see?


	12. Past Love, Future Heartbreak

A few minutes later- she'd taken all kinds of detours to try and give herself more time to think about what she might say, all the while knowing that she'd never be able to find exactly the right words- Sam found herself standing outside General Landry's office, trying to collect herself one last time for what she was about to do.

She knew that Daniel's future self was there, of course- there were definite sounds of activity from inside the office, and she knew that Landry wasn't there-; she just wasn't sure what she even wanted to talk to him _about_?

How she'd died? She somehow doubted he'd react well to being asked about something that had clearly been a difficult event when it had first taken place; she didn't want to make it even _harder_ to talk to him than it already would be.

Why he'd decided to come back now? He'd pretty much answered that question in the briefing room already; the Ori had begun a new attack and he'd somehow traced their revival back to her death (It seemed like a bit of a stretch to her, but then again Daniel had always had this habit of bypassing A and B to jump straight to Z).

Why he'd seemed so shaken to see her alive? Sam almost wasn't sure she _wanted_ to know the answer to that one; if she turned out to be wrong…

She shook her head; that kind of thinking wouldn't get her anywhere but worry.

No, this wasn't getting her anywhere; all she could do was go in, ask the future Daniel what she wanted to know, and hope that she was correct in her original guess.

If she wasn't…

Well, she'd work out how to cope with that when the time came.

Raising her hand, she knocked on the door.

"Come in," a voice said casually on the other side.

Opening the door, Sam smiled slightly as she saw Doctor Jackson, who had apparently been raiding the disguise rooms for some facial make-up; ever since the SG teams had begun to acquire a more significant reputation, some missions had begun to use disguises to avoid being discovered by potential enemy forces. The future Daniel had already dyed his greying hair black and seemed to have applied some darker make-up to his face, thus giving him a more healthy-looking appearance than he'd possessed when she last saw him. Judging by the unapplied bits of make-up scattered around the desk before him, it looked like he was also thinking about applying a false beard and contact lenses, but Sam didn't care about that right now; he still had a decent amount of time before the Earthedelegation for the conference was due to travel through the Stargate, but she wasn't sure her desire to know would allow her to wait that long.

Right now, she had things she wanted to say to him, and this may be her only chance to say them before whatever was meant to happen at the conference… happened.

"Oh… Sam," Doctor Jackson said, looking suddenly sheepish as he looked up and realised who had come in to see him. "Uh… how are you doing?"

"Daniel…" Sam sighed, as she stared back at him. "You came back to save _me_?"

After a moment's silence, Doctor Jackson spoke again, confusion evident on his face.

"Uh… is there a problem with that?" he asked, staring uncertainly at her. "I mean, it's not like I just came back here as soon as it happened; I spent a _lot_ of time trying to decide whether I should do anything about it or not, and I only did it in the first place because I'd found evidence that told me what would happen if I did _nothing_ about it-"

"Daniel," Sam interrupted, raising a hand to stop him as she looked resolutely at him. "Before you go any further… I wanted to say… thank you."

Doctor Jackson blinked at that.

"You're… you're not mad?" he said, looking uncertainly at her. "After all the times you told us _not_ to change the past…?"

"Well, given that you said you waited for ten years and didn't do anything about it until you found out that the Ori were active and they were somehow involved in my death, I _think_ I can excuse that," Sam said, smiling reassuringly at him before her expression became more serious. "What I _want_ to know, however, is why you… well, _reacted_ so strongly when you saw me alive?"

She knew that it was a blunt way to say what she wanted to say, but she'd always been a blunt kind of person when it came to matters like this; she had something she wanted to know, and she was going to find it out.

After a moment's silence, Doctor Jackson spoke again.

"Well…" he said simply, looking decidedly uncomfortable as he looked at her, "that's… well, that's a _kind_ of complicated story…"

"Complicated?" Sam repeated, looking sceptically at this future version of her old friend. "What's complicated about it? What happened to you to make my death mean that _much_ to you? I haven't seen you look that shaken since-"

She broke off mid-sentence, as she realised the full implications of what she'd been about to say.

"Exactly," Doctor Jackson said, a sullen expression on his face. "Since the day I tried to save my parents in the Gamekeeper's simulation and saw them alive again."

Even after the future Daniel had confirmed Sam's theory, she still couldn't quite believe the implications of what he'd just said.

His expression upon seeing her alive matched the way he'd looked when he saw his parents alive in the Gamekeeper's simulation.

In his entire life, Daniel had never been very good at showing emotion, and from what she'd seen, his future self wasn't much better at it than he was.

He had only ever lost control when facing something that had reminded him of an event that had caused him such great pain in the past- the death of his parents, the death of Sha're, his reaction when he learned what had happened to Abydos- that his entire _life_ had been altered by the consequences of what had taken place at the time in question.

The only events that had ever altered his life to that extent were the deaths of people he'd loved, and, in her experience, he'd only loved three people so much that their deaths had had such a profound effect on him; his parents, and Sha're.

 _And he'd had that look when he'd seen her_ …

Even as the clinical scientific part of Sam's mind noted that she'd evidently been wrong about Daniel having any kind of feelings for Vala; would he really have been looking at her like that if he did?

But for Daniel to look _that_ devastated, it would have had to have been more than just the death of someone he loved to push him this far; not even the loss of Sha're had pushed him into such an extreme state of grief as he seemed to have fallen into after her death.

And there was only one thing she could think of that might have made Daniel feel worse about her death; if he'd learned how _she_ felt about _him_ too late for either of them to do anything about it.

"Oh my God…" Sam whispered, as she looked questioningly at Doctor Jackson, the possible implications of her recent revelation running through her mind even as she looked at him. "Did… did I tell you…?"

"It doesn't matter," Doctor Jackson said briskly, turning away to begin trying to apply his beard; Sam could almost _see_ him erecting the emotional walls that his present counterpart had grown used to erecting to stop himself from dealing with the pain he was feeling. "It's never going to happen now; the specific details aren't important."

"What I'm assuming were my final words aren't _important_?" Sam said, her inquiring expression instantly shifting to an incredulous one. "Daniel, you can't seriously expect me to believe _that_ -"

"It. Doesn't. Matter," Doctor Jackson said grimly as he turned around to stare at her again, his expression cold. "As I already told you, it's never going to happen now; what you _would_ have said isn't important any more."

"But if it was enough to encourage you to come _back_ -" Sam insisted.

" _Damnit, Sam, don't make this harder than it already is_!" Doctor Jackson yelled, walking forward to stand directly in front of her, a look of rage and pain on his face that she hadn't seen there since that time he had destroyed the Goa'uld larval symbiotes during their first return visit to Chulak. "It doesn't matter to ME, don't you get that; I'M NOT GOING TO BE HERE FOR IT TO MATTER! The only person who's going to benefit is the me who _belongs_ here, the me who _didn't_ lose you, the me who's got the chance that I never had, the me who didn't have to watch you _die_ after you just told him you _loved_ him-"

As though his mind had only just caught up with his mouth, he turned away, clasping the edge of the desk as though he was trying to stop himself from punching a hole through something.

"I… I'm sorry," he said simply, his head bowed and his voice sounding like he was trying hard not to cry. "I shouldn't have said that; I had no right to-"

"You had no right to what?" Sam asked, walking forward to place a hand on Daniel's shoulder. She'd always known that Daniel had difficulties talking about his feelings, but she'd hoped that he'd manage to get _better_ at that in the future rather than seemingly regress.

If her death had caused this…

If Sam had ever needed a reason not to die beyond the fact that she didn't want to, this- the sight of what would happen to the kindest, most caring man she'd ever met if she did so- was more than enough of one for her. Daniel had done so much for the Stargate program- and, indeed, humanity as a whole- since Catherine Langford had brought him in all those years ago; she was _not_ going to see him regress to this kind of condition- the condition that so reminded her of what little she'd read about his childhood after the death of his parents- if she could help it.

"Daniel…" she said, staring pleadingly at him despite the fact that he wasn't even looking at her, "if you felt that strongly about my death, why didn't you _say_ -"

"Because _it_. _Doesn't_. _Matter_ ," Doctor Jackson repeated, sounding like he wished he was anywhere but here but knowing he had to say this anyway. "Sam, my timeline doesn't even _exist_ any more; I'm probably going to fade into existence or something like that any _moment_ now. I don't even have the _right_ to be talking to you any more; you've got _him_. I'm just… well, I'm the poor substitute at best."

"Poor substitute?" Sam repeated; she couldn't believe how much Daniel didn't seem to care about himself. "Daniel, you came back to save my _life_ -"

"After failing to do _anything_ for you the first time?" Doctor Jackson said sullenly, as he looked back at her. "Don't try and make me feel better about it, Sam; I can't make up for that failure, and I don't even deserve to try. All I can do is try and make sure that the _other_ me doesn't have to go through what I did, and I'll be satisfied with that. I'm not even going to _exist_ in a few hours any more… probably; you shouldn't even be wasting your time here-"

"And what if I _want_ to be 'wasting my time here'?" Sam asked, looking somewhat pleadingly at Doctor Jackson as she stepped forward, raising a hand to touch his face. "Daniel… you came all the way back through time for me, and you honestly felt that you wouldn't deserve _anything_ for making that kind of sacrifice?"

"Uh…" Doctor Jackson muttered, looking like he'd rather be anywhere but there, before he finally seemed to come to a decision; reaching over, he pulled Sam towards him, pressing his lips hungrily against hers in a kiss that seemed to be trying to convey ten years' worth of emotion in a matter of seconds. For a moment, Sam didn't even care that he was at least a decade her senior and looked like he'd been through hell to get there; he still smelled like Daniel, his body felt like Daniel's had whenever they'd hugged in the past, even his _presence_ seemed to give off the same comforting air that Daniel's always had…

" _No_!" Doctor Jackson suddenly yelled, pulling back from Sam with a look of remorse and self-loathing as he turned away. "I… I shouldn't have done that… you're not _mine_ , you're _his_ …"

" _No_ , Daniel," Sam insisted, reaching out to clasp Doctor Jackson's shoulder and turn him around to face her again. "I'm _mine_ , understand? You didn't do anything wrong; I _wanted_ you to do that, understand?"

"But… but you have _him_ …" Doctor Jackson protested.

"Look, whether Daniel's him or you, you're still both _Daniel_ as far as I'm concerned, understand?" Sam insisted, clasping her hands around his face and turning him to look at her. "You may not belong to this time, but you came all the way back from the future just to save me; I think that entitles you to _something_ , right? If you're going to blame yourself about anything, _don't_ blame yourself about this."

 _Plus, it only counts as cheating if it goes any further_ … a part of her mind commented, but Sam resolutely ignored that part. Kissing the older Daniel was one thing, but the thought of going further with _either_ Daniel right now was just too confusing; she wasn't even sure whether it could count as 'cheating' on one of them, given that she wasn't involved with either of them, but she'd really rather not have to try and figure out that particular headache at the moment.

After a moment's silence, Doctor Jackson looked back up at Sam and smiled slightly at her.

"You always knew just the right thing to say to get through to me, didn't you?" he said, reaching out to gently touch her cheek. "Thanks. I… I appreciate it."

"Any time," Sam replied, smiling slightly as she looked back at him, before she sighed and stepped back. "Anyway… you'd better get back to work; the conference starts soon, and I've kept you too busy as it is."

She knew that she'd just opened up a whole new can of worms in an already complicated situation, of course- how would Daniel react if he learned that she'd _kissed_ his future self?-, but when he'd looked so broken at the thought of losing her in the past, and had gone to all this trouble just so that at least _one_ version of himself could have the opportunities that he couldn't have…

Had it been so wrong of Sam to want to give him _something_ good for his sacrifices?

It was only after she'd left the room that she began to worry about how she was going to tell the others what had happened. She'd gone there to find out more details about why the future Daniel had come back from the future, but the reason he'd done so definitely _wasn't_ something she'd feel comfortable sharing with the rest of SG-1.

Right now, all she really wanted to do was to stay out of the way of the rest of the team until she'd had the time to come up with an alternative explanation for what had just happened without actually revealing what she'd said. She and Daniel _would_ have a talk about what she'd learned from his future self at some point, of course, but with the conference coming up and Daniel's need to focus on that, this definitely wasn't the time for her to be worrying about any feelings he may or may not have for her.

Once they'd made certain that the future that Doctor Jackson had come from wasn't going to happen, _then_ she'd take the chance to talk to him about what had just taken place.

 _OK then_ , Sam reflected, as she continued to walk down the corridor towards her lab. _Just stay out of the way, go back to the lab, and work on the portable version of Merlin's device until the conference team's ready to go through the 'gate. That's all you're going to do; you will focus on your work and nothing else. You will_ not _think about the fact that you apparently told Daniel how you felt about him just before you_ died _… you will not think about the fact that those particular words left Daniel in the kind of funk that not even Sha're's death left him in… and you will_ definitely not _think about the fact that you just shared the most electrifying kiss you've ever had with Daniel's own_ future self-

Glancing at her watch, Sam dashed for the elevators leading to her laboratory, determined to find something- _anything_ \- that could help her get her mind off this increasingly complicated situation she'd just found herself in with her best friend.

It was official; she _definitely_ needed to find out if she could spare half an hour to have a cold shower in an attempt to cool down from that kiss she'd just shared with the future Daniel.

Who would have thought that Sam would ever find the most complicated thing about time travel being the person who'd done it rather than that it had actually happened in the first place?


	13. Meeting Jack and Thor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Just to remind everyone, this timeline diverged from the main SG-1 series after 'Tailon', meaning that the final fate of Adria isn't known and the Asgard didn't commit mass suicide, just in case anyone wondered about Thor's presence in this part of the story.  
> 2\. I'm not exactly happy with this chapter, but it has to be written to establish who knows and who doesn't know about Doctor Jackson's real identity; hopefully the next few chapters will work out better.  
> 3\. Bonus points to anyone who catches the 'Simpsons' reference in this chapter!

As he stood in front of the Stargate- located a good mile or so from the main building where the conference was taking place; they didn't want to risk somebody sending a bomb through that could instantly kill all the delegates, and with the gate some distance from the conference they'd have more time to react to an attack this way-, anxiously glancing at his watch, Jack once again found himself wondering why he kept on doing this kind of thing to himself.

Ever since he'd been promoted to the position of head of Homeworld Security, he'd found it increasingly hard to find time to visit his old teammates on SG-1, and even when he _did_ manage to drop in, it inevitably ended up being because of some major crisis or another. After all, look at what had happened the _last_ time he'd visited the SGC; Daniel had been turned into a Prior, the Supergate had been deactivated, and the Ori had been destroyed…

OK, that was probably a bad example of him only coming back during a major crisis; in the end that situation had actually turned out to be a _good_ thing, when you got down to it, even if they'd had a few nasty months after the Ori's next wave of battlecruisers had come through before the damn things ran out of power.

And, for the moment, this one looked like it would turn out to be just as good a thing in the end. After all, here he was, about to negotiate a peace treaty with the servants of a race that had nearly wiped them out in the name of some quasi-religious crusade (And he had _really_ been hanging around with Daniel too much if he was thinking of words like 'quasi' that casually).

"Is everything well, O'Neill?" a voice said from off to the side, prompting Jack to turn and smile slightly at the Asgard ambassador for the conference, sitting beside him in his traditional chair; he'd been beamed down to the Stargate to wait with Jack for the arrival of SG-1 before the conference officially started.

If he'd needed any other reason to come along to this conference, the opportunity to see Thor again after almost three years was worth it; he always enjoyed the chance to chat with the guy, even if he _did_ look a bit… odd.

"Just… thinking, I guess," the original commander of SG-1 said, shrugging slightly as he looked back at the wormhole before him.

"I understand," Thor said, nodding slightly at Jack with an expression on his face that Jack had long ago come to recognise as the Asgard equivalent of a smile. "It will be good to see the rest of SG-1 again, O'Neill; it has been too long since I have had the opportunity to work with them."

Jack had just opened his mouth to reply when the large stone ring before them began to spin, the chevrons lighting up even as they watched.

"Ah, here they come now," Jack smiled, turning to look at the gate as the traditional 'explosion' occurred and the wormhole formed. A few seconds later, all six members of SG-1 were-

 _Hold on a minute;_ six? Jack thought, his train of thought breaking off as he realised the problems in his previous thought. _There_ aren't _six people on SG-1_ …

Taking a closer look, he swiftly identified the odd man out among the group before him. While five of the team were the familiar members of SG-1, each of them dressed as smartly as possible for the conference- Sam and Mitchell in their dress uniforms, Daniel and Teal'c in suits and Vala in a dress suit that fortunately didn't show any cleavage; they didn't want any delegates being distracted by a view-, the sixth figure was an older man, dressed in a dark suit, who looked to be in around his late fifties or his early sixties. He had a thin face, with glasses slipping slightly on the end of his nose, lines that looked like they'd come to be on his face through a combination of age and stress, a white beard covering his chin that matched his equally white hair, and eyes that gave the impression of a man who'd seen so much loss that he was almost locked in a permanent state of grief.

Except… they weren't.

Oh, he'd experienced a lot of grief, that much was obvious, but from what Jack could see, it almost looked as though the man in front of them was… recovering, for lack of a better term. His eyes were still dominated by grief, but his step seemed somewhat lighter than his expression would have suggested to somebody with Jack's experience in reading people, and he generally seemed more open than people in his position would have seemed otherwise.

The guy before him didn't look exactly happy, but Jack was prepared to bet good money that he would have looked even worse a while ago.

"Greetings, SG-1," Thor said, inclining his head slightly as he looked at the group before him, stopping Jack from voicing his questions before he could even try to do so. "I presume that you are Cameron Mitchell and Vala Mal Doran?"

"That's us; great to meet you at last, Commander," Mitchell said, nodding politely at the Asgard before he indicated the stranger. "Hope you don't mind us bringing a sixth guy along; something… well, to put it simply, something came up which means he's pretty much got to be here."

"Indeed?" Thor asked, looking over at the older man inquiringly. "If I may ask, who are you?"

"Well, for official purposes," the man said, smiling slightly at Thor, "I'm Doctor Melbourne Ballard, sent here to help look over the fine print of the terms of the treaty and thus determine whether there are any further precautions we can take to make sure that the Ori never come back; there's no telling whether or not they might return if the people who still believe in them are left alone to believe in their propaganda."

"Ah," Jack said, nodding uncertainly as he looked uncertainly at the man before him. "And… _un_ officially?"

"Unofficially?" the man repeated, smiling slightly as he looked over at Jack. "I did a Marty McFly and came here to change things."

"Marty McFly?" Thor inquired, looking uncertainly over at Jack.

"Uh… he's this time-travelling kind from a movie series back on Earth; kid goes back in time by accident and ends up fixing his parents' marriage before it even happened…" Jack explained, still slightly confused, before the implications of the man's statement fully hit him.

"Hold on; you're from the _future_?" he said, looking incredulously at the man in front of him. "But… what about all that 'don't change history' stuff?"

"Trust me, Jack," the man said, as he looked at the general in question, "I put a _lot_ of thought into that particular issue, until I finally learned something that meant I _had_ to come back here if there was going to be any kind of future for me."

Jack blinked.

It wasn't so much the fact that the guy knew his name that was the real shocker; without meaning to sound arrogant, given that he'd been one of the first people to ever use the Stargate, he'd have almost been disappointed if anyone connected to the SGC in the future _didn't_ know his name.

It was more the _tone_ of the way he said it… the familiar tone that made it sound like this guy knew him _personally_ …

"Uh… have we met?" he asked, looking uncertainly at the man before him. "As in, have _I_ met _you_ , or is it just you who knows me…?"

"Oh, come _on_ , Jack; you can't tell me I'm _that_ difficult to recognise after all the time we've spent together!" the older man said, smirking slightly at Jack as he looked at the general. "I spent all those years on your team, turning _your_ hair grey, and yet you don't recognise _me_ with the same hair colour and a bit more lines around the face?"

Jack blinked in confusion.

 _What the…?_ he mused to himself, squinting slightly as he studied the man before him in an attempt to identify where he'd seen the guy before. He did look _vaguely_ familiar, now that Jack thought about it…

Actually, take away the beard and some of the lines, put a bit more flesh on his face, and take away the look that made it seem like he'd lost everything and never been able to get it back, and he could have been-

Jack's eyes widened in horror.

It _couldn't_ have been…

There was no _way_ that the guy could have been through so much that he'd look like _that_ … not after he'd practically single-handedly saved the damn _galaxy_ , for cryin' out loud…

But, no matter how he felt about the implications of his recent revelation, he knew that it was the right one.

" _Daniel_?" he hissed in shock, looking incredulously between the archaeologist and the man he now _knew_ was the archaeologist's older self.

"Doctor Jackson?" Thor repeated, looking with a slightly surprised expression at the older man. "How is this possible?"

"Long story short?" Mitchell explained, looking over at SG-1's original leader and Earth's greatest alien ally after taking a quick glance around to make sure nobody else was near the 'gate before he continued. "Jackson here came back from the future to… well, he had to stop something happening here after he learned that… the _thing_ that happened… was apparently part of an Ori plot to sabotage this conference by making sure he wouldn't be there."

"Indeed?" Thor said, looking briefly at Mitchell in a critical manner before he turned to look at the older man- _Daniel_ would turn out like that? Jack couldn't quite believe it- inquiringly. "May I ask what it was that you sought to prevent, Doctor Jackson?"

The older Daniel blinked.

"That's it?" he said, looking in surprise at Thor. "I mean, not that I'm not grateful you believe me, but I would have thought… I dunno, you've never really talked about your own abilities or knowledge when it comes to time travel…"

"So you assumed we were either ignorant of it or would be displeased at your use of it?" Thor asked.

"Well… yeah, pretty much," Doctor Jackson said, as he looked at Thor, suddenly looking a bit sheepish.

"Do not worry, Doctor Jackson," Thor said, raising one hand in a reassuring manner. "I am confident that, whatever your reasons for travelling in time, you were certain at the time that you had no other recourse but to do so; you would not have done such a thing lightly."

"Yeah, yeah, Daniel did what he had to do to save the world; I _got_ that," Jack said, walking forward to stand directly in front of the older version of his friend. "What I _want_ to know right now is simple; _what were you here to change_?"

"I would have died," Sam said simply.

If it was possible for a face as relatively immobile as the Asgard's to look shocked, Thor's was doing it right now; at the very least, his eyes opened wider than Jack had ever seen them open beforehand.

"You would have died?" Thor repeated, looking briefly at Sam in what Jack could only presume was shock- even in the current situation a part of him couldn't help but be grateful at this proof that the Asgard appreciated their aid over the last few years, given how shocked Thor was at the idea of one of them dying- before he shifted his gaze back to look at Doctor Jackson. "And you came back to prevent this?"

"I… I _had_ to, Thor," Doctor Jackson said, looking momentarily like he was going to say something else but stopped it before it could come out. "In my timeline, I was… well, I was too busy trying to find out who'd done it- and not managing to find out _anything_ useful, despite that- to attend the conference, and…"

He paused, as though contemplating what he was about to say, before he sighed in frustration. "Well, I can't tell you that."

"What?" Jack blinked. "Whaddya _mean_ , 'you can't tell us that'? Daniel, you came back from the _future_ ; I think it's safe to say that you've already _done_ all the damage you're going to do-"

"But I _have_ to ensure that events play out almost the same as they did in the _original_ timeline," Doctor Jackson countered, looking at Jack with the same stare that his younger self always used when he was trying to make a point that Jack didn't seem to be listening to. "Don't you understand, Jack? If I tell you too much about what happened as a result of the conference- if you know _how_ it led to the Ori rising again in the future-, you might spend so much time focusing on it that the Ori forces there are… well, they might realise that something's wrong and try something else. I'm walking a fine enough balance as it is; I've already potentially jeopardised my future knowledge just by coming here. I _can't_ give anyone else any reason to act differently than they might have done in the circumstances; my only chance to work out what happened here is to let you all just do what you'd have done if the attack had never happened and keep an eye on Sam in the process."

"Oh, so _that's_ your big plan?" Jack groaned, staring at Doctor Jackson in frustration. "Wait and see what the bad guys do when Sam shows up alive? Daniel, no offence, but that's-"

"The best plan he could come up with given the situation he was facing when he left, _sir_ ," Sam stated bluntly, in a tone of voice that made it clear she wasn't willing to countenance Jack objecting to Doctor Jackson's plan right now. "He did what he could to try and save us all; given that he was under attack at the time, the fact that his plan has a few holes in it is just something we're going to have to work around."

Jack blinked.

It wasn't that he hadn't been expecting Sam to say nothing if she objected to his comments; things had been somewhat cool between them ever since she'd discovered him in bed with Kerry Johnston, and given that she was no longer officially under his direct command- the chain of command between them these days was so indirect it wasn't worth considering that much-, she could certainly get away with saying that kind of thing to a superior officer.

It was more the _reason_ she said it that got to Jack. Why would Sam have reacted so violently to Jack's objections- more questions, he liked to think; he hadn't actually said that he _hated_ the plan- to the older Daniel's plan?

Then he noticed the look that Sam briefly shot in the older Daniel's direction as Thor vanished in the bright light of a teleporter and the rest of the group began to walk away from the Stargate towards the room where they were holding the peace conference- they must have kept talking while he was distracted by his thoughts-, and a possible explanation for Sam's attitude occurred to him.

Could it be…?

No.

It wasn't _possible_ …

But then again, if _Daniel_ had been the one to witness her death…

Despite the grim nature of his thoughts, Jack couldn't help but smile slightly.

If he was right, Sam had been stubborn right to the end; it had taken _death_ for her to finally admit how she felt about the SGC's resident archaeologist/linguist to the guy himself.

Then the implications of that thought settled in, and he stared somewhat sadly after the older version of his friend.

 _Damn_ … he mused to himself, as he began to walk after his old team. _No_ wonder _he looks like he's been hit in the face with a ton of rakes_.

After witnessing the woman you loved die right in front of you, possibly just moments after she'd admitted that she felt the same way?

Jack could only hope that, whatever future-Daniel was here to stop happening, he managed to pull it off; unless Daniel had completely changed since the present, the old guy (And _damn_ , he couldn't believe he was thinking of somebody who'd been born about a decade after him as 'the old guy'; future-Daniel _really_ looked old) needed victories like that if he was going to get over his self-perceived 'failure' to save Sam.


	14. Confrontation at the Conference

As he walked up to the building that had been erected as the makeshift 'conference hall' for the Ori Peace Treaty, Doctor Jackson allowed himself a slight smile under his disguise as he studied the building before him.

It didn't exactly look like the kind of structure where galaxy-defining decisions would be made, but that was a necessary handicap given the speed that they'd needed to try and make something secure enough to hold the conference while not locating it on a planet where some of the locals might have a grudge against the Ori soldiers that they wanted to settle. As a result, they'd been forced to erect a temporary building on a relatively uninhabited planet some distance from the gate, thus limiting the chances of the conference being sabotaged by someone with a grudge out to eliminate the remainder of the Ori forces. It hadn't exactly been the most elaborate building to negotiate something that would decide the fate of the galaxy, but given the humble conditions that most of the Ori's followers had lived with back in the Ori galaxy, most of them hadn't really complained much about it.

At least, that's what he'd read in the mission reports, of course; having never been there himself, Doctor Jackson had no way of knowing if that description of events had just been exaggerated to make people back at the SGC think that the conference had gone better than it actually had. He'd known that the conference had ended with the Ori forces agreeing to the terms laid out by the SGC and the Asgard, of course, but that aside he'd really known very little about the fine details of the thing; he'd been more focused on trying to find an explanation for Sam's death while also coping with his new promotion to the head of Stargate Command, and looking over the files on the conference hadn't exactly been his top priority.

Now that he'd actually arrived, however, Doctor Jackson had to admit that it didn't really look that bad. The metal that comprised its body managed to look relatively warm despite being the standard grey of most installations of this kind, and the interior was tastefully decorated to create a comfortable feeling while still making sure that everyone present remembered that they were there for business purposes.

Although the largest room in the building was naturally set aside for the conference, the majority of the conference building included some living accommodations for more of the Ori ship commanders. Until they could locate a planet for the battlecruisers' crews to live on, the former Ori followers were remaining on their ships in orbit around this planet, with their assorted commanders staying in the conference building while the final terms of the treaty were finalised.

 _In other words_ , Doctor Jackson mused to himself grimly, looking up at the daylight sky that currently concealed the Ori ships above him from view, _there's no way of knowing where Adria is right now, so I can't just pin her down and hope for the best_.

All he knew for sure was that she _was_ somewhere here; with the Priors having lost access to their powers following the activation of the Sangraal and the subsequent weakening of the Ori, only Adria would have had the power to manipulate minds in a manner like what would have been required for his future to come to pass.

Which meant that the weapon he currently held in his pocket- designed for the sole purpose of turning mental energy back against its originator in a confrontation- was most likely the only thing that could ensure the timeline he remembered wouldn't come to pass.

He wasn't going to delude himself into thinking that there was any way to negotiate with Adria at this point; he'd seen too much to think that she was even remotely capable of anything like redemption any more. He'd made his own efforts to get through to her back when she'd first tried to convert him to Origin while he worked to complete the Sangraal, and he hadn't made any impact whatsoever; the conditioning she'd undergone from her 'fathers' was too strong.

He might like to believe in the best of people when he could, but he'd long ago realised that some people either couldn't or didn't want to change what they were, and the years he'd spent in charge of the SGC had only increased that realisation.

Adria was a monster, pure and simple; if it was up to him to stop her, he'd do it.

All he wanted, more than anything, was to insure that his past self had the opportunity for the life he hadn't been able to live.

No matter what Sam might say to try and comfort him, Doctor Jackson knew he couldn't stay. He was too old and worn-down now to give her the life she deserved, and he knew all too well that he and his past self would never be able to _share_ her even if she'd consented to such an arrangement.

After he'd saved the day here, he'd have to leave.

Where he'd go was a good question, of course- travelling through the Stargate was always an option, or he might try and get back into the archaeological game under a new name without his old rep-, but he'd work that out when the time came.

All he knew for sure was that he would never be able to stay here; seeing her alive and not being able to be with her would almost be a worse punishment than losing her in the first place…

"Doctor Ballard?" a voice said from off to the side.

Glancing over, Doctor Jackson was barely able to retain a flinch when he saw one of the former Priors standing beside him, his hand outstretched and an inquiring expression on his face.

He'd known that Priors would be here, of course- they were the most senior members of the 'crew' on any Ori battlecruiser, and they were hardly a threat now that their powers had been 'shut down' due to the absence of the Ori- but knowing they'd be there and _dealing_ with them being there weren't the same thing. He knew that it wasn't this Prior who'd killed Sam, of course, but after what that action had done to him in his future, he supposed that he was only entitled to be a bit uncomfortable around them at the moment.

"Sorry; I wasn't expecting you to just… show up like that," he said apologetically, reminding himself not to ask the Prior for his name as he shook the offered hand; after a certain length of time 'serving the Ori', Priors tended to forget many of the specific details about their old lives, with only the general details remaining after a while. "I presume you've already met my… colleagues on SG-1?"

"Indeed," the Prior said, nodding briefly back at Doctor Jackson's past self and his teammates before he turned back to look at Doctor Jackson. "I understand that you are Earth's newest representative to discuss the terms of our treaty with the Milky Way galaxy?"

"Precisely," Doctor Jackson said, indicating his past self as he spoke. "And Doctor Jackson is here to help me make sure that all sides involved in the treaty get a fair deal; I have done my research, of course, but his first-hand knowledge of your way of life would be invaluable to me in determining the appropriate conditions for you to continue your way of life with the minimum of fuss."

"Of course," the Prior said, bowing slightly with no discernable change on his face; evidently he took no offence to Doctor Jackson's phrasing of his reasons for being there.

It wasn't proof, of course, but judging by his seemingly relaxed attitude towards the treaty, Doctor Jackson was reasonably confident that, whatever had taken place here that had required his absence in the original timeline, this Prior was not a part of it. So far he still hadn't 'sensed' anything that might tie into what he'd learned in the future regarding the identity of the persons responsible for Sam's death- he couldn't think the name; her belief that she still had the element of surprise was all he had, and he didn't know how sensitive her telepathy was-, but he was well aware that his ability was out of practice. After all, how else to account for the fact that he hadn't reacted to… _her_ … presence in his future?

For his younger self, on the other hand…

As he and his past self walked into the conference room, Doctor Jackson allowed himself a brief glance over at himself- and he still couldn't quite believe that he was actually looking at _himself_ like this; now he had some idea of how Sam must have felt during that second experience with the quantum mirror-, and was only slightly surprised to note that his theory seemed to be accurate. As soon as his younger self had entered the room, he seemed to become particularly edgy, evidently sensing what Doctor Jackson had suspected he would sense.

The truth of the matter was, he'd slightly bent the truth when talking to Jack and Mitchell in the future when he'd claimed that he could sense the presence of _anyone_ who'd been empowered by the Ori.

The reality of it was, while he had some slight awareness of those who the Ori had 'enhanced' thanks to his own time as a Prior, he was particularly 'in tune' with Adria, due to her attempts to form a psychic 'link' to him while trying to convert him into a Prior. He could slightly sense other Ori 'agents', true, but his sense of them was nowhere near as powerful as it was when he was in Adria's presence.

Whenever he was near Adria after that, he always felt as though every nerve ending in his body was simultaneously on fire and frozen simultaneously when he initially arrived in her presence. It faded after a few seconds, of course, but it still left him with an undeniable… _sense_ of her presence that he couldn't deny the existence of any more than he could deny the existence of the Stargate.

He'd only sensed it on a few occasions, but he'd hoped deeply that he'd never have to feel it again; the link to Adria, no matter how necessary it had been in order for his plan to succeed, just felt…

 _Wrong_ was the only word that could ever successfully describe it.

Being that connected, even for a brief time, to someone who wasn't Sam or Sha're?

He'd hated it.

Although, if the expression that had just flickered across his younger self's face was any indication, he definitely hadn't clearly remembered just how much he'd loathed it back when the link had first been created.

Nevertheless, as he took his place among the Tau'ri delegation for the conference, both he and his younger self managed to remain in control, taking care not to attract too much attention to themselves as they studied the room they were now in. Based partly on the internal structure of the UN conference room, the room consisted of several long desks laid out in a semi-circle around a central podium where the current speaker would stand when addressing the rest of the delegates to discuss the terms of the treaty. Thor was already located at the central podium, the Asgard serving as the central delegates in the current peace talks, with the Tau'ri delegates to his right, the Jaffa to his left, and the Priors and former followers of the Ori right in front of him.

As SG-1 entered, the group briefly exchanged glances with each other and subsequently split up, the two Daniels and Jack heading for the Tau'ri delegates' table while Sam, Teal'c, Mitchell and Vala took up position around the podium, ready to defend Thor if things turned ugly. Doctor Jackson had initially thought about requesting that Sam be transferred off the security team to limit Adria's opportunity to strike again, but in the end he'd decided against it; not only would Sam probably kill him _herself_ for seemingly implying that she couldn't handle an attack that she would know was coming, but at least this way he could keep an eye on her and know when the so-called 'Orici' was about to strike again.

If he knew anything about Adria after all their time together when she tried to convert him to follow Origin, Doctor Jackson knew that she was, at heart, very set in her ways; she was a very charismatic speaker, and possessed some very 'interesting' powers, but she wasn't a very tactically-minded person. Her first plan to kill Sam had failed, but Doctor Jackson had little doubt that she'd be trying it again; as far as Adria was concerned, killing Sam was the only way to guarantee that his past self wouldn't attend the conference, leaving him with no other choice but to let this proceed and hope that Adria would slip up.

As the last of the delegates filed into the room, Thor began to address them, but Doctor Jackson couldn't focus on that right now; all his attention was on the other delegates, carefully studying them to determine which of them might be in on the plot against Sam's life. The former Ori 'delegation' were the prime suspects, of course, but Doctor Jackson doubted that even Adria's arrogance would cause her to be that obvious.

No, he was confident that, somehow or other, Adria's agent at this conference was present among one of the other delegations. The security forces scattered around the room would be on the alert for an attack from the Priors and the Ori's remaining loyal worshippers, but they definitely wouldn't be expecting something from the Jaffa or Tau'ri delegates (The Asgard, of course, were totally above suspicion; after all the time the Asgard had spent working with the Ancients in the past, the Ori could never have infiltrated them).

 _If only I knew_ where _they were…_ Doctor Jackson groaned, as he studied his surroundings, barely even registering Thor's words even as Jack continued to earnestly take down details on the paper in front of him. In any other situation, Doctor Jackson might have found the current role reversal between him and his friend rather amusing- Jack taking notes while _he_ was tuning out?-, but with the stakes the way they were right now, he didn't have the time for that.

Besides, his younger self was still paying a decent amount of attention to the situation; that probably cancelled out his own current inattentiveness-

 _Wait a minute_ … Doctor Jackson suddenly realised, looking over at his younger self as a sudden realisation hit him. _He's_ not _paying attention_.

Oh, he was definitely listening to Thor's speech- the brief notes he was making on the papers before him proved that, if nothing else- but he was still only devoting a portion of his attention to the matter at hand, simultaneously constantly scanning the conference room around him as though he was looking for something.

In another situation, Doctor Jackson might have presumed he was looking for a friend.

But with the situation they were currently in, Doctor Jackson knew that it was something far more sinister than that.

Adria _was_ here.

And, judging by the look on his younger self's face, she was about to use her powers…

Just as that realisation struck his future self, Doctor Daniel Jackson suddenly did something that nobody who knew him could ever have expected him to do in this kind of situation. Before the eyes of everyone in the conference room, delegates and security alike, he suddenly stood up in his seat, leapt over the table and crashed into Samantha Carter as she stood beside the podium, sending them both hurtling to the ground even as Thor turned to look at them quizzically.

For a moment Doctor Jackson almost thought that Adria had somehow replaced his younger self- just as she'd once posed as Osric during their quest for the Sangraal- to try and get rid of Sam while simultaneously framing him for the crime to get him out of the way, but then he felt a brief twinge of telepathic energy along the vestiges of his old link to Adria and realised what had happened.

 _Adria was about to try and attack Sam_ …

His younger self had acted to get Sam out of the way of Adria's attack; now it was up to him to try and neutralise Adria herself.

"NO!" he roared, unconsciously mirroring his younger self's actions exactly as he faulted out of his chair, charging towards the space in the middle of the room where the attack had come from; with the link now activated by something as strong as Adria's last attack, he could practically pinpoint her location even if he couldn't see her directly.

Even as he sensed Adria preparing an attack to counter his own assault with one of her own, he charged directly into the seat of a Jaffa delegate, sending the two of them hurtling to the ground even as Adria dropped her disguise to stare incredulously at him.

"Who… who _are_ you?" she asked, staring at him in a mix of confusion and fear; evidently she wasn't used to facing something she couldn't recognise.

"What, you don't recognise me, Adria?" Doctor Jackson retorted, smirking slightly at the woman who'd once tried to seduce him as he reached up with one hand- keeping the other pressed against her neck in an attempt to at least try and hold her down- and pulled off his fake beard. "How about _now_?"

Adria's eyes widened in shock.

" _Daniel Jackson_?" she yelled.

" _What_?" Bra'tac said where he sat off to the side, looking incredulously at the older version of his old Tau'ri friend as he held the woman who had only moments ago appeared to be a very decidedly _male_ member of the Jaffa delegation to the conference. "But… how is this possible?"

" _Long_ story, Bra'tac," Doctor Jackson commented, his eyes narrowed as he continued to glare at Adria as he pulled out his 'Anti-Prior Gun' (He wondered how Mitchell would react to knowing he'd called it that) out of his pocket. "All you need to know is simple; she tried to stop me being here by killing Sam."

Narrowing his eyes as he glared at Adria, Doctor Jackson allowed himself a slight smile before he glanced back to see his past self hauling Sam back to her feet. "But guess what, Adria? _You blew it_."

"NEVER!" Adria roared, her eyes glowing in an almost Goa'uld-like manner as she looked back at Doctor Jackson. Instantly, a massive burst of red, fire-like energy suddenly erupted around her, sending Doctor Jackson and the Jaffa delegates flying back.

Even after his decade of mourning, Doctor Jackson was still fit enough to cope with most physical challenges he might encounter during his chosen profession, but a psychic attack like that at such close quarters wasn't one of them. Even as he hurtled towards the ground, Doctor Jackson was trying to adjust his fall to minimise the damage he'd sustain as he landed, but as he hit the ground, the shooting pain in his left leg told him all too clearly that he'd failed.

"And now," Adria's voice uttered, breaking into his momentarily pain-filled mind as he lay on the ground, "since my initial plan to restore my fathers has failed, it's time to start again… starting with _you_!"


	15. Death of a Hero

Doctor Jackson didn't need to see to know what was happening; the reactivated link with Adria was enough for that.

Whether out of some desire to carry out at least a variation of her original plan, or just because she was feeling vindictive, she was firing another energy burst directly at Sam…

And with both her and his younger self still dazed from the last attack- Doctor Jackson was prepared to bet that the pain in his broken leg was throwing off the attack's disorientating effects on him-, it was all up to him to save Sam. Ignoring the agony in his leg, Doctor Jackson forced himself to stand between Adria and Sam, raising his weapon even as he turned its psychic energy capacitors up to maximum; if this thing was going to absorb an attack from Adria, it would need all its space available.

Even as the attack struck him, Doctor Jackson knew this wasn't going to be pleasant; the powers of the Priors may have been exclusively psychic in nature, but the Ori, as he'd seen on his trip to their galaxy, also used fire extensively while exerting their influence on this plane of existence. As a result, Adria's attack was as much a massive flamethrower as it was a purely mental assault, striking her target both on the physical and mental planes simultaneously.

Even as Doctor Jackson drained away the worst of the psychic assault with his weapon, simultaneously weakening the flames as the psychic power that spawned them was drained, he knew that it wouldn't be enough to deflect everything. He could already feel the flames licking away at his hands and arms as he held the weapon before him, fighting to stop himself from registering the pain that threatened to consume him even as it tried to penetrate his mind…

 _NO_! he vowed, tightening his grip as he stared resolutely at the dim sight of Adria before him, the flames flickering off his glasses and rendering it nearly impossible to see.

He'd failed to save Sam once.

Even if it cost him his life, he would _not_ fail to save her again if he could help it.

Even as he felt the flames surround him, he tightened his grip on the psychic weapon he now held in his hands, ready to lash out at the woman before him as soon as she dropped her guard. After all the time they'd spent together on the Ori battlecruiser, he knew her limitations well enough; she may have possessed more power than the Priors, but she still drew her powers from the same source as they did; the Ori themselves.

With the Ori now gone, Adria would most likely be suffering from a significant shortage of power; exerting this much energy against him _had_ to be draining for her.

The only question was, which one of them would yield first; him from the pain, or her from exhaustion.

 _Yield_ , Adria's voice suddenly sounded in his head; since her telepathy wasn't an actual attack at the moment, the weapon wasn't able to directly block it, although it was weakening the original message slightly. _You_ cannot _win, Doctor Jackson_.

"Care to… bet on… that?" Doctor Jackson grunted in reply, glaring through the flames surrounding him at the dim form of the Orici currently standing in front of him, the fine details of her appearance concealed by the fire she was generating. He vaguely registered people trying to yell at him from outside the flames that now surrounded him, evidently trying to convince him to stop what he was doing, but he couldn't listen to them right now.

He had made his decision, and now he was _going_ to see it through regardless of what happened to him afterwards.

 _I am the Orici_ \- Adria began, once again making a (In Doctor Jackson's opinion) futile attempt to convince him to surrender.

 _And_ I _came back from the future to stop your plans from succeeding; do you_ really _think I wouldn't be prepared for anything you've got to throw at me_? Doctor Jackson countered, his mind resolute even as he felt the skin on his fingers begin to practically melt together from the heat. _It's_ over _, Adria_!

 _NEVER_! Adria bellowed in his mind. Instantly, a sharp pain tore through Doctor Jackson's brain- if he hadn't know the brain lacked feeling, he would have thought that somebody had just driven a railway spike through his skull-, nearly prompting him to release his grip on his weapon to grab at his aching skull.

Only the knowledge that, if he dropped his guard, it would almost certainly mean Sam's death allowed him to keep holding on to it.

 _Come on…_ he muttered, staring at the small energy read-out on the back of the device he now clutched in his hands. _Come on… hit your peak… hit your peak…_

Then, just as he was beginning to feel like he would have to kneel if he was going to remain upright to any degree, the read-out on the weapon before him beeped sharply.

Despite the pain he was now in, Doctor Jackson grinned.

 _Perfect_.

He'd known from the beginning that the weapon's conventional action- taking the psychic energy released by the opponent and instantly launching it back at the originator- wouldn't be enough for Adria. Given that she was directly linked to the Ori, she'd never exert all her power in a single assault, so his only chance to gather enough psychic energy to defeat her had been to allow his weapon to absorb a prolonged psychic attack until he was certain it couldn't take any more.

"Hey, _bitch_!" he yelled, glaring at her through the blazing inferno before him as he adjusted the settings on the weapon in his hands, allowing his old rage and pain to dominate him for a few moments as he prepared to deliver the blow that would end her life. "Try _this_ on for size!"

Before Adria could respond, he slammed his thumb down on the switch that would activate the weapon's offensive capabilities, even as he hoped for a moment that he'd manage to hold on for a few moments after this; he'd rather _not_ die with those as his last words…

* * *

As he and the other members of SG-1 stood around the literal tunnel of flame that had been suddenly created when Adria launched her attack, only for it to be intercepted by his future self- it looked like it had been aiming at Sam's original location, but the flames seemed to be being concentrated around where the future him was standing without being able to go any further in either direction-, Daniel found himself in one of those rare occasions where he had no clue what to do. Going into the tunnel would accomplish nothing except for possibly killing him, but if he just stayed out here his future self would almost certainly die…

The worst part was, Daniel almost knew exactly what his future self _wanted_ to happen in this instance, because he would have felt the same way in this situation.  
  
After all, he's lost the woman he loved once; having saved her, why would he want to remain in a timeline where he'd feel obligated to leave in order to give the version of himself from that reality a chance (Admittedly, he still wasn't entirely sure how Sam felt about him- what his future self remembered her saying could have only been caused by delirium on her part as the Prior's plague destroyed her cells-, but he had little doubt that his future self would feel that way about the situation)?  
  
But just because Daniel knew what his future self probably wanted to happen didn't mean he was going to just _let_ it happen; there had to be something they could do to help him…  
  
Then the fire suddenly seemed to turn around and charge towards Adria, leaving a blackened form at the other end of the firey tunnel with its hands raised before it clutching an object that Daniel recognised as the psychic-absorbing weapon that his future self had given him to tackle the Prior that had been sent to kill Sam. As soon as the entire tunnel had 'retracted' back to its point of origin, the flame vanished, leaving Adria standing in the middle of the room as she stared incredulously ahead of herself, before she let out an agonised scream and suddenly seemed to burst into flames in a manner that reminded Daniel of the time that Gerak had 'self-destructed' after he had helped them to find a cure for the Priors' plague.  
  
For a moment, there was silence as the assorted groups within the conference room stared in shock at the sight before them- not even a pile of ash was left to indicate that Adria had ever even been present in the first place-, but then Doctor Jackson collapsed to the ground, drawing the group's attention back to him.  
  
" _Daniel_!" Sam yelled, hurrying towards the still-slightly-smoking form of Daniel's future self as he lay on the ground (Daniel was barely able to restrain a flash of utterly illogical jealousy at the evident concern in her voice), closely followed by the rest of SG-1.  
  
As he reached his future self, Daniel could barely restrain a slight wince as he saw the state the man was in. Even with the weapon apparently having absorbed the worst of the attack, he had clearly still taken some serious damage from the flames, the sleeves of his suit having seemingly merged into his skin from the heat, and his glasses having partly melted to seemingly become part of his very face.  
  
"Oh my God…" he whispered in shock, as he crouched down to stare in horror at the man who he might have become. Even as he vaguely registered the rest of his teammates surrounding him and his future self, he remained mostly unaware of their presence, all his attention focused on the dying form of the man before him.  
  
 _Dying_ …  
  
Even as his future self stirred weakly, his eyes partly opening under the melted glasses, Daniel knew that it was the only word that could apply in this situation. No matter how much Jack might joke about Daniel having turned coming back from the dead into a hobby, he knew that only luck and other assorted factors had prevented his past 'deaths' from being permanent ones; what his future self had just endured, as the evidence before them clearly confirmed, wasn't something he could survive.  
  
Even as these thoughts filled Daniel's mind, his future self turned to look in his direction, groaning slightly as he weakly opened his eyes.  
  
"Did… did I do it?" he asked, his voice sounding extremely hoarse, most likely due to the contraction of his throat from the sheer heat he'd just been exposed to. "Is she… safe?"  
  
Daniel didn't even need to ask who he meant; after what his future self had just gone through, there was only one person he could be referring to. He didn't even bother to answer himself; he just moved slightly off to the side and allowed Sam to crouch down in his original position, the better to allow her to look at his future self.  
  
Even though the pain, Daniel's older counterpart clearly smiled as he saw Sam kneeling down beside him.  
  
"You're safe…" he croaked, feebly raising one hand to tenderly stroke her cheek. Seemingly unconcerned about the heat of his hand, Sam reached up to hold the hand to her cheek, a tear trickling down her cheek as she looked at the man who'd sacrificed his very existence for her.  
  
"Yes…" she replied, nodding tearfully at the older version of her closest friend as he lay dying before her. "I'm safe… you saved me."  
  
"You saved us all," Daniel added, moving to kneel on the other side of his future self, looking slightly sadly at the man who'd given up everything on such a slim chance to save a woman who he would never have a chance to love himself. "Thank you."  
  
For a brief moment, the man- a part of Daniel couldn't think of the man as him any more, as though wanting to deny any version of him should have to endure such pain as he must have been faced right now- smiled at him.  
  
"Least… I could do," he said, smiling slightly as he looked at Daniel, "for… the man… I was."  
  
Reaching up with his other hand, the older Daniel placed a firm hand on his younger self's shoulder, glaring resolutely at him through his damaged glasses.  
  
"Don't wait…" he said weakly, his gaze fixed on his other self's eyes as he spoke. "I did… and lost everything…"  
  
Daniel could only nod slightly at that, not wanting to actually voice his feelings on something so private at a time like this.  
  
Smiling gratefully back at him one last time, Doctor Jackson closed his eyes, sighed in relief, and his breathing slowly ceased.  
  
It was over.  
  
Adria was dead, and the future that the man had come from had been averted.  
  
As Daniel, Sam and the rest of SG-1 stood up and looked around at their assorted allies and old enemies, all sitting around them at the conference tables as they stared in confusion at the sight before them, they knew one thing and one thing for certain.  
  
He would have wanted it this way.  
  
As much as Doctor Jackson would probably have tried to put on a brave face to try and make the majority happy, he wouldn't have wanted to live in a world where he would be depriving his counterpart of the chance to be with the woman he loved; his actions had made it clear to Daniel that he didn't think he deserved Sam.  
  
 _The only question_ , Daniel reflected to himself, as he glanced over at where the woman he loved now stood as she prepared to answer any questions the conference attendees had for her, _is do_ I _deserve her_ …?


	16. Salvation

A few hours later, Sam sat silently in her laboratory, staring at the computer screen before her as she tried to write up her report on the recent events that had led to the conference being cancelled.

After Adria's appearance at the building, it had been decided by all concerned parties that the conference was to be temporarily called off until not only could an alternative venue for the conference to take place in be located, but also until they were certain that none of the delegates had been manipulated by Adria or the Priors. After her display of power when she had attempted to murder Sam, many of the delegates had felt that it would only be sensible to hold off negotiations with the remaining Priors until they were all certain that the Priors had lost all trace of their former powers and could in no way influence the final outcome of the conference. Contact would still be maintained between the former Ori worshippers and other groups to determine when would be the appropriate time to open up the matter of negotiations once again, but until they were certain that the Ori's potential influence had been totally ended contact would be limited, and all visitors to Ori ships would undergo intensive pysical and psychological evaluation afterwards to ensure that they weren't being influenced in any way.

It wasn't the most peaceful solution to the dilemma, true, but it had to be done if they were going to prevent the rise of the Ori in the future. If the Ori's remaining loyal followers were given an opportunity to start trying to convert people, this whole nightmarish situation could start up again; at least this way, they had a chance to encourage that faith to die out as the Ori continued to do nothing to help them.

A knock at her door brought Sam out of her thoughts, prompting her to glance up to see who had come to talk to her.

"Come in," she said briefly.

As the door opened, she wasn't surprised to see Daniel standing outside her office, looking at her in a slightly awkward manner as he uncomfortably rubbed at the back of his neck.

Not that Sam could blame him for his discomfort, of course; she still wasn't entirely sure how to react to what she'd learned from Daniel's future self, to say nothing of how to deal with what had happened at the end of his presence in their lives.

How often could you say that someone had not only died for you, but given up their very existence just on the chance of saving your life?

"Are… are you OK?" Daniel finally asked after a moment's awkward silence as the two old friends stared at each other, neither of them certain what could be said in this situation.

Sam could only shrug slightly.

"About what you'd expect, really," she said simply, before looking back at her friend. "How about you? I mean, seeing yourself _die_ …"

Daniel responded with a slight shrug of his own as he walked into the office, shutting the door behind him as he did so.

"Jack would probably say that, after all the times I've died already, seeing myself die wouldn't be that big a deal," he said in a manner that most people would have taken as being relatively casual.

Sam, however, was not one of them; she only had to look at Daniel to know that he found it difficult to think of the final fate that he would have met in at least one timeline if she had gone.

He may have died so often that he'd practically turned coming back from the dead into a hobby, but Sam doubted he would ever get used to it.

"It was… hard, wasn't it?" she said, looking back at him with a slightly sympathetic smile. "I mean, I remember what it was like when my alternate self collapsed from entropic cascade failure, and even then I knew that she'd never really been _me_ ; we must have diverged so far back in the past for her to not be able to imagine joining the military that we'd have had practically nothing in common by that point. Having to witness what you _could_ have been die…"

After a brief pause, she looked inquiringly at Daniel. "What… what are you doing with his body?"

Daniel sighed.

"It wasn't an easy decision," he said in response. "I'd thought once or twice- if I'd thought about it at all- of asking to be cremated and my ashes scattered over the Great Pyramid, or at least be buried in Egypt, but… well, he'd been through so much since he was me… I didn't really think that would be what he'd want any more; I got the impression that, in many ways, the Program had become more of a home to him than Egypt had ever been, even when I'd been there with my parents."

Shaking his head briefly at the long-ago memories of his childhood, Daniel paused for a moment to gather his thoughts before he continued. "In the end, I decided that we'll scatter his ashes through the Stargate, after activating the multiple dialling program to dial every Stargate in the galaxy at once. I talked it over with the others, and they thought it would be… right… for me to do that."

Despite the tragedy of what they were discussing, Sam smiled slightly at that thought.

"The only way to be sure that you'll witness every world we can access by using the Stargate that you opened up for us, huh?" she said, smiling in approval at Daniel's decision. "I agree with the others; that sounds like… it sounds like the right thing to do. He sacrificed everything to save the galaxy; it's only right that, in some way, he gets to see all of it."

For a moment, the two of them simply stared silently at each other, until Daniel finally broke the silence.

"I'm… I'm sorry," he said finally, as he looked awkwardly at her. Noting Sam's confusion, he swallowed anxiously before he continued. "I'm sorry he came back here."

Sam blinked.

"You're _sorry_ for that?" she asked, looking in confusion at her friend. "Daniel, you- he, whatever you want to refer to him as- saved my _life_ -"

"And ended our friendship," Daniel interrupted, looking away from her as he said, the faint trace of tears in his eyes as he spoke.

Sam's eyes widened in shock.

"What?" she said again, wishing she could say something more intelligent- where was that genius IQ that she was so valued for here when it came to dealing with her personal affairs?- but unable to get past her confusion at what Daniel was saying. "Daniel, we'll always be friends-"

"When you know how I feel about you and don't feel the same way?" Daniel interrupted, looking at her like he was torn between wanting to yell at her and wanting to run for his life. "Sam, all this is going to do is change _everything_ , can't you see that? I mean, I'm grateful you're alive, but from now on, can you honestly tell me that you'll ever feel at ease confiding in me about anything again? That you'll ever feel comfortable being alone with me? You'll always be wondering if I mean anything I do as just a friendly gesture, or if I do it because I want to… to be with you."

Even as he spoke, Daniel turned away, trying to stop himself from looking at Sam, knowing that he would only feel even worse if she saw her looking back at him, trying to appear sympathetic even as she attempted to work out the best way to tell him that she didn't return his feelings.

"Just… just don't say anything, please," he said finally, feeling like his heart was going to explode from the pain. "I know I don't deserve you, Sam, and I can…" his voice briefly croaked as he fought to hold back his tears, but he quickly recovered and continued, "I can learn to live with that; I just… just can't…"

"Can't what?" Sam retorted, standing up from behind her desk and walking over to stand in front of Daniel. "Can't let yourself be happy if your future self wasn't happy? Can't let yourself have what you want because you failed in _one_ future? Daniel, you can't just cut yourself off from me just because you failed _once_ -"

"Sam…" Daniel sighed, raising a hand as he looked at her, looking like he was about to cry. "Please… just let me go."

He looked so heartbroken as he stood there that Sam didn't even stop to think about what she was about to do. Grabbing Daniel's chin in her hand, Sam pulled his face towards her and pressed her lips against his, simultaneously wrapping her arms around him to prevent him from even trying to get away.

For a moment, Daniel's eyes widened in shock at the feel of her lips- somehow, even just the taste of them was better than he could have ever imagined-, but then he forced his emotions aside to try and enjoy the moment.

He may have been confused about what had just taken place, it may have been the most selfish thing he'd ever done, Sam may just have been trying to comfort him…

But, right now, as far as he was concerned, he just wanted to enjoy the moment that he thought he would never have the chance to experience; he could deal with the potential consequences of that action once it was over. For a few brief, undefinable moments- he could have done it for seconds or even days, it wouldn't have mattered-, he wrapped his arms around Sam, returning her kiss with everything he had within him, until lack of oxygen forced them to part, leaving Daniel staring in confusion at his friend as the full implications of what had just taken place began to sink in.

 _Sam_ had kissed _him_?

"But-" he began weakly, clearly uncertain about why Sam had just done what she'd done.

"Daniel," Sam interrupted, placing a finger on his lips as she stared at him with a slight grin evident on her face, "firstly, you need to learn that not _everything_ that goes wrong is automatically your fault; I'm sure that, in the future he came from, he tried everything he could to save me, and he doubtless has already spent enough time beating himself up about his 'failure' for you to start doing it now. Secondly, I moved on from Jack shortly after I was transferred to Area 51; we tried to have something then and it just… well, to say it didn't work out is an understatement, trust me. And thirdly…"

Removing her finger, she replaced it with her lips once again, tenderly kissing him for a few seconds before she pulled back to smile at him once again.

"Trust me," she said as she looked resolutely at Daniel, "whatever you might think, I _definitely_ feel the same way that you do."

For a moment there was only silence as Daniel stared uncertainly at her, clearly trying to decide whether she was telling him the truth or simply playing a joke for reasons he couldn't be sure of, before he finally smiled at her.

"Actually, I hope you feel a _bit_ less serious about me than I do about you," he said, a slightly teasing tone in his voice as he spoke.

"Really?" Sam asked, pulling back and looking at Daniel inquiringly. "Why?"

"Because," Daniel replied, smiling as he leaned in to plant brief kisses on her lips as he spoke, "if we were _both_ that serious, we might very well be tempted to forget about the security cameras…"

Despite her earlier bleak mood, Sam couldn't help but smile at that.

"Well," she retorted, pulling back slightly to look at Daniel with a seductive grin on her face, "we _could_ always see about snatching a few hours from our now-clear schedules to remedy _that_ particular little problem…"

Once again, Daniel found himself smiling broadly despite his formerly bleak manner.

"I like the way you think, Colonel Doctor," he said casually.

"Any time," Sam replied, before she indicated the door to the lab. "Shall we go?"

* * *

As the two new lovers ran towards the lift that would take them out of the SGC, up in some higher dimension that even the Ascended would never be fully aware of, a figure sat and watched them both, a soft smile on his face as he studied them.

He'd done it.  
  
He'd saved her, and, by extension, the rest of the galaxy with her.  
  
And, most importantly of all, the man he might have been now had a chance with her that he himself had never been able to experience.  
  
 _Good luck_ , the man known in a future that would now never exist as Doctor Daniel Jackson 'said' to the woman he loved and his younger self.  
  
 _I wish you only the best_.  
  
It was true, after all; even after all that Doctor Jackson had lost himself, he still hoped that the man who remained would have the opportunity to live the life that he himself had been denied.  
  
The universe had taken so much from him in one lifetime; it was comforting to know that another him still had a chance at happiness  
  
And with that last thought, the consciousness that had once been Daniel Jackson turned his back on the world that he had known in life, and moved on to whatever awaited him in this new realm.  
  
He had to admit, after spending so long just glimpsing it during his momentary demises, a part of him was rather interested to see what was actually there at the end of it all…


End file.
